


Lucid Touch

by perceptivefics



Series: Saga of the Signless [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cronus/Kankri Flushed Crush, Dream Bubbles, Fingering, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Dualscar/Signless, Kissing, M/M, Nonbinary Signless, Virgin Cronus, heavy on character interaction light on porn, slight sadstuck maybe??, who learns to pay attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-06 20:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11608776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perceptivefics/pseuds/perceptivefics
Summary: Cronus Ampora has an almost obsessive interest in talking with Kankri's many Alternian iterations as The Signless for reasons which are shamefully selfish: learning more about himself in the new world, and learning more about Signless. A new variant has appeared in the dream bubbles; like always, Cronus goes to meet him in the same spot where the others always show up. Except this time, his conversation extends past cursory questions, and he realizes belatedly he may have gotten way more lucky than he anticipated.Mainly because this particular Signless was in some manner of concupiscent relationship with his Alternian counterpart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written as a belated birthday gift for @whatthefuckarewe-dualsign on Tumblr, and it was SUPPOSED to be something much shorter, but - as is the usual with me apparently - things got away from me fast once I got my grubby mitts on anything with an Aquarius and a Cancer.
> 
> Do be warned that if you're interested in reading my current longfic slow burn project, [**Countdown To Dawn**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11151987/chapters/24883242), you uh...may want to skip over this one. Or you can keep reading, just bear in mind that there will be **hella spoilers** for Countdown To Dawn. I've done my best to keep them not quite so severe, but they do still give away tidbits that I was planning to keep secret for a little longer. (The problem is I just can't help myself.)
> 
> **CW: blood ; gore (injuries post-execution) ; implied/referenced death/execution ; referenced scars**

Varying iterations of the suffering, signless troll had a habit of materializing in the dream bubbles at the spot where they were executed. Cronus Ampora discovered this completely by accident: it wasn’t a place he knew, nor would he have ever chanced across it while alive. But it was funny how far he could branch out when he put his mind to it; when he was just wandering around, almost aimless, to see where the bubbles would take him. Getting lost was never an issue; he could always find his way back. Among all the places he found, however, the execution grounds of the Signless had become a favorite.

 

Like several of the other trolls in their session, he had encountered their Alternian equivalents on the odd occasion or two. Others that Cronus knew, however, usually avoided interacting with them: Meulin, for example, found the despairing state and semi-feral nature of her double unnerving. Aranea tried it, with hers, then found out the hard way that the Marquess was far sharper and _meaner_ than even she had anticipated. Rufioh apparently held a conversation with the Summoner at length, but then lost interest one way or the other. Mituna had an encounter for all of two seconds before he was so upset by his alternate’s physical state that he fled in terror. On top of all these minor crossings of paths, it was so _rare_ to find their Alternian selves, even in the dream bubbles, simply because their experiences were so different. Actively seeking them out was tricky. Only a few in their group could really pull it off.

 

But Cronus knew how to do it - sort of. And he found that he kept going right back to that ominous metal slab with the red-hot irons on it. A testament to the brutality of Alternian living: where violence and mercy seemed to collide in a hellish mess, like oil and water. A memory seared into being by agony, then launched into the bubbles by a final, uncaring command to put one out of their misery. He didn’t like the feeling that the place gave him at all. Mostly, Cronus just wanted to talk to the troll that kept appearing there.

 

Unlike his other session players, Cronus never came across his own Alternian counterpart. What he knew about Orphaner Dualscar came in vague snips from his interactions with Signless (and sometimes others, though Cronus wasn’t nearly as intrigued by Mindfang, and she never seemed keen on talking about anyone other than herself). Why Signless, though? Because - frankly - apart from his disinterest in the other Alternian ancestors, Signless was one of the only ones who knew who he was, or who he was supposed to be, and would actually sit down and _talk with him._ He didn’t get that kind of treatment from the others. And since this so-called _Orphaner Dualscar_ apparently saw fit to keep to himself, this was the only option Cronus had left. It had become a dual interest over time: half of it was that he _really, really_ wanted to know more about what kind of person he became on Alternia. On the other hand, though, Cronus knew exactly which troll _Signless_ used to be, and that was just as fascinating as any other story about pirates and slaves and caste rebellions.

 

It wasn’t always the same Signless, but that just made the game more interesting. Version after version would crop up (alternate timelines, paradox space, and _glub dee glub dee fuckin’ glub_ ), and Cronus would be there to ask all the important questions. Sometimes he would pass himself off (very poorly) as the Orphaner, and Signless - by lucky mercy of the threads in his dream bubble - would believe him. Usually, though, they were all much sharper than that. Half of them knew they were dead and dreaming inside of a few seconds. Others wouldn’t get it for a while, but eventually, they caught on. Antagonistic of him? Sometimes. Maybe. (Probably.)

 

They all looked _so much_ like Kankri. Cronus shouldn’t have been surprised when he met the first one, and yet he was. It was like looking into Kanny’s future and seeing what he could be, what he could _do,_ if he really tried. If their Kankri hadn’t died so young on Beforus, would he also look like that? Would he be different? Would he be just as bitter, as angry, or would the differences between their worlds shape him into something a little less calm fury and a little more soft speeches?

 

He would let them down from their trappings every time he met them. Cronus, by this point, had come to expect a small handful of reactions. Most of the time, they either feared him, or were annoyed with him, or some healthy mixture of the two. The fact that they spoke with him at all seemed to usually stem from some type of tolerance. It was a little painful; at least the Kankri he knew wouldn’t seem so bored or preoccupied whenever they managed to talk. But he made the most of the conversations when they happened, regardless.

 

So when he showed up this time to the execution block, and saw yet another version of the Signless - chained up and bloodied and a mess - he had his hands on his hips, like usual. Standing right in front of the troll dangling on display, peering up at him. This one was a little interesting at first glance: older than the others by a considerable number of sweeps, though he still had a stroke of youth in him. Usually all the other Signless-es were killed off far earlier; sometimes when they were only a handful of sweeps older than Cronus. (Or, very rarely, almost the same age as Kankri. But he didn’t like to remember those ones.) He also had three gold studs pierced into each of his big, wide ears near the outer edges, and a pair of gold hoops on the bottoms of both. He stirred slowly, and when he awoke, his eyes were a vibrant shade of pink even with the milked-over look of death in them.

 

Cronus flashed him his most confident grin. “Rise and shine, lowblood whelp!” He barked. (It was something he imagined Orphaner Dualscar would say. It sounded very pirate-y.)

 

Signless blinked rapidly, and looked at him like he’d spontaneously grown a second set of arms.

 

“Hey, don’t look at me like that!” Cronus exclaimed, catching himself when he realized belatedly that it came out at almost a whine. He cleared his throat. Had to be very serious! Maybe this time he could practice being a badass for longer than five seconds. “Who’s the one stuck up in the irons here? ‘Cause it sure as hell ain’t me, sweetness!”

 

The Signless continued to stare, saying nothing, though he looked _very_ bewildered.

 

“Awww. Still wakin’ up from your little nap?” Cronus cooed. “Have yourself a fun time right before they strung you up and -”

 

“Cronus Ampora of the land that lived before us, I don’t know what game you think you are playing, but I know damn well you’re not my Orphaner.”

 

He felt a scratching noise on the back of his skull, followed by an internal noise like the sound of a cat yowling in an alley. His entire expression fell in an instant. Cronus threw up his hands. “Aw what the fuck! Are you kidding?! You’re like the _tenth_ fuckin’ time since the last one that played along all nice-like!” He pointed an accusing finger at Signless. “You lot gotta quit bein’ so damn smart all the time, I swear!”

 

Signless released a laboring sigh, straining in his irons with an irritated wince. “If you’re not too upset at my calling your bluff, would you mind explaining what you mean by ‘the last one’?”

 

Goddamn! Not even giving him a moment to breathe. Just diving _straight_ into that exposition. Fuck. Cronus’s gills flared open in mild annoyance, and he chewed on the mouth-end of his cigarette before he sighed back - loud and harsh and dramatic - and started to answer.

 

“Okay, _fine,_ if you’re gonna be such a killjoy about it. But it ain’t that complicated. Basically, you're not the first Signless to show up here.”

 

Signless paused, peering at Cronus skeptically. “How is that possible?”

 

“I don't fuckin’ know, man.” Groaned Cronus. Because how many times had he been asked this when he wasn't blessed with intimate knowledge of the fabric of the space-time continuum? Way, way too many. “Time and space are weird. They're not my aspects so I can't tell ya how that whole mess works. Offshoot timelines and alternate games and blah blah blah. More importantly, d’you know where you are right now?”

 

“...In the city square, where the Empress had me tortured for my crimes.” The Signless replied after a thought, nonplussed by the fact that he was bleeding from several wounds and shackled in hot irons.

 

“Close, but not quite.” Cronus corrected. “You’re in your own memory of the place, manner of speaking.”

 

“So, am I...dreaming?” Signless wondered. “Because I've experienced visions like this almost all my life. Will I wake up still bleeding to death if I vanish from here, or…?” He paused, then finished, “Am I here to stay?”

 

“The latter.” Said the younger seadweller. “Sorry, man. No visions here. You have definitely, officially bitten the big one.”

 

There was a flicker of disappointment; a flash of something missed, a moment of regret, and then resignation. “Ah,” he said. “It was only a matter of time, I suppose.”

 

“Hey.” Cronus shrugged, adding: “If it makes ya feel better, you're the oldest version of you that I've seen hangin’ here so far.”

 

Signless hung his head, brows creasing down the center as he focused on his feet that were screwed to the metal execution tower. “...Being here now makes it difficult to feel joy over how long I lived, seeing as I can’t deny that I’ve died. But I guess I can hope it was enough to make more of a difference in my version of Alternia.”

 

“Fair enough,” Cronus replied, nodding in vague agreement.

 

Signless looked up. “I don't suppose you would know? Or know how I could find out?” He explained, “I understand you are from the world that lived before –”

 

“Beforus.” Cronus supplied with an amused grin, seeing the confusion on Signless’s face, “My planet. It’s just ‘Beforus.’”

 

This appeared to upset the mutant-blood hanging from the tower. He regarded Cronus first with alarm, and then disbelief. “…That’s it?”

 

Cronus snorted. “Yeah, ya don’t gotta make it sound all fancy. ‘World that lived before’, that’s so _stuffy.”_

 

“That’s it. Beforus.”

 

“Yup.”

 

“The name of your planet.”

 

Cronus paused, ear-fins flicking up as his expression turned blank. He cautiously raised his hands in the shape of two finger-guns, thin purple-tinted webbing stretched between his thumbs and forefingers. “You got it.”

 

Signless thought this fact over for a little while, and when he reached his conclusion, he _sighed._ “The universe is stupid,” he complained.

 

“Yo, how d’ya think _we_ felt when we found out the planet spawned off our monumental fuck-up is called _Alternia?”_ Asked Cronus, waving his hands about in an emphatic gesture. “Preachin’ to the choir, over here. Back to your question though: if you're lucky, I guess you might find someone around here from your same timeline who could tell ya how things went. Provided they outlived you, of course. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.” He rolled his eyes and continued, “I'm literally just fuckin’ off here. Being dead for an eternity gets boring if ya don't stay busy.”

 

Signless paused for a moment or two, thoughtful. “If it’s entertainment that you seek, why do you keep coming here? This isn’t a place that’s exactly rife with mirth and merry-making.”

 

Cronus chewed on his cigarette, furrowing his brow. “Mmmeh.” He replied, “Everyone else seems capable of at least seein’ a hint of their Alternian selves except me, and every Signless I’ve met is pretty much the only guy willing to talk about anything regardin’ that Dualscar character. I’m curious. What can I say?”

 

He pointedly avoided the admission that half his curiosity was over Signless himself, as well. No need to get too deep into his own feelings about it, he figured. He also highly doubted any Signless would be interested in his personal plights involving Kankri – _his_ Kankri. Nothing about Kankri was really relevant to Alternia, after all, and no Signless yet had asked about him - or even bothered to bring up Beforus in general.

 

“Really?” Wondered Signless, his ears perking up at that fact. “We can’t all have had personal experience with our Dualscars, though.”

 

Cronus grinned at him again. “Yeah, but that’s what’s fun about it!” He insisted, striking a pose. “Because the ones of ya that weren’t personally captured by him have at least _heard_ of him, and I’ve picked up all kinds of shit already about how scary and killer I was. I was the meanest motherfucker of the seas! Apparently I really gave fussy old Aranea a run for her money, too!”

 

Signless said nothing about this in return, and Cronus missed the painful expression in his features altogether. The seadweller straightened after a thought struck him. “Oh! Fuck, what am I doing? You wanna get down from there?” He held his hands up to Signless, pointing in a vague gesture to the scalding irons snapped around his wrists. “I mean, there’s no point in keeping you chained down, y’know?”

 

“Oh.” Signless looked up at his shackles, then down again to the screws buried into his feet. He seemed to become aware, in a snap moment, that he should logically be in horrendous amounts of pain. He bled freely from several lacerations and puncture wounds on his body, an arrow was stuck right through his pusher, his feet were caked with an old rusted-over color, and his wrists – right down to the chitin plating on his forearms – smoldered from contact heat beneath his bonds. But he felt none of that, now. He supposed there was no use for it; the execution went off without a hitch. Why suffer any longer?

 

“That might be nice,” he agreed. His tone was awkward; he really had no idea what to do with himself now that he was dead. In the immediate moment, he did have a _few_ things in mind, but beyond that? What was he supposed to do? Where could he even go?

 

“A’right.” Cronus stepped forward to start going through the process of getting Signless down from the execution display. He missed the way Signless glanced up again to his chains, a recognition crossing his features. Cronus kept on with his plan, intending to reach for the screws to dislodge them from the poor man’s feet. “Just gimme a couple seconds. I ain’t much good at doing the whole instant disappearance thing, but this shouldn’t hurt.”

 

There was a noticeable rush of air above Cronus’s head. He thought he sensed a shift in the terrain. He lifted his gaze just in time to get the shit startled out of him  when Signless just tumbled right down, irons and screws gone, the blue arrow that once pierced his chest disappearing forever. The execution display had aged several hundred sweeps right before Cronus’s eyes; with Signless no longer attached to it, or its meaning, the environment stopped reflecting his internal memories of how it was when he died.

 

 _“Fuck!!”_ Cronus barely got his arms up in time to help break Signless’s fall - and he was _way_ heavier than expected, what the hell! There was a soft grunt from Signless as he stumbled on his feet a little, bracing against Cronus for support while he helped prop Signless more upright. Cronus let him sort himself out, and worked not to think too hard on how warm it felt when he held the other up. “Jesus, nevermind! You took care of business, I guess.”

 

“It’s not too different from the visions I had as a grub, really.” Signless replied, eventually drawing away, looking himself over. He rubbed his hands over his wrists as a reflex, inspecting the thick layer of scarring and the damaged chitin plating. “It’s just as malleable here. It just so happens this is the sort of vision I can never wake up from. That’s all.”

 

Cronus’s ear-fins twitched curiously and he put his hands on his hips. “Is that how you knew I was from Beforus?” He wondered.

 

“It is, in fact.”

 

“Oh. Neat.” Cronus added, with a flourish of hand gestures, “‘Cause others of you always seem to just, um, _know stuff,_ but they wouldn’t really talk about _how.”_

 

Signless chuckled. “Trade secret. But mostly visions.”

 

Cronus pouted at him. “Well, that ain’t no fuckin’ fair.”

 

“Perhaps.” Signless turned himself this way and that, and when he looked up again, he was contemplative. “I suppose there’s no use staying looking like this if I’m dead, either?”

 

“Hey, unless you _wanna_ walk around lookin’ like a fresh-risen corpse.” Cronus pointed out. Halfway through that sentence, his eyes then suffered through witnessing another glitch-out typical of dream bubble fare, this time as Signless neatened up his own appearance. The results, however, were anything but dull. Cronus had to stop, and remember to keep his mouth shut unless he wanted to lose the cigarette clamped between his teeth.

 

When Signless had finished the shift into something more appropriate, all of his wounds were gone, and he was dressed in a tight black pair of leggings with candy-red striping down the sides. A corset was sewn into the top section to make it a single cohesive piece, and he had on a pair of boots with matching red heels. A loose, plain, comfortable blouse now covered up the small curves of his rumble spheres; the sleeves ended just above the chitin plates on his forearms. He also gained the addition of several small, jeweled rings - three on each hand - a collection of gold chokers and jeweled chains around his neck, and a gold vertical labret through his bottom lip.

 

 _Definitely_ not like any of the Signless-es he’d met before. Cronus blinked several times, and wondered many times in a row if he was just convincing himself he was seeing these things. When he got caught staring, Signless just arched an eyebrow at him, filmed-over pink eyes staring into his own death-softened violet ones.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Uhhh.” Cronus coughed, squinted in embarrassment, and then finished awkwardly: “Vwhoah.”

 

Signless just smiled, crossing his arms. “Not what you were expecting of another Signless, I take it.”

 

Cronus pulled back on his heels and sucked in a breath. “You know, you’re not wrong!” He agreed. Signless laughed; the sound made his pusher skip a few lines, and he tried to elaborate, because it seemed a better thing to do than staring for ever-long. “You just, uh, you, uh - you - with the jewels - and the -” He sucked on his teeth, and scowled. “Weren’t you some kinda preachin’ outcast startin’ up a rebellion or whatever on the fringes of society and shit when you were alive?”

 

Signless’s smile just got wider. “Yes?”

 

“So...” Cronus waved an arm up and down, meaningfully, and pointed to the collection of necklaces draping delicately across the older troll’s collarbone. “What’s with all the fancy bits? It’s just, all of you that showed up before were all so _plain,_ and _you_ look kinda like you’d be better of with - with, um -”

 

Signless arched an eyebrow. His smile showed teeth now. “Pirates?” He supplied helpfully.

 

 _“Yeah!”_ Cronus exclaimed, snapping his fingers.

 

“Perhaps that may be because I spent most of my later sweeps with one.”

 

The declaration, said with such confidence, was such a wildly different variation from what he was used to that at first, Cronus had a hard time believing it. He regarded Signless with wide eyes and balked. “No fucking way. _Willingly?_ You’re shitting me! You don’t seem the type!” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “I mean, like, none of you! _Ever!_ Seemed the type!”

 

“Well...in any other time, under different or similar circumstances, I would agree with you.” Signless brushed a few stray strings off one shoulder, and fiddled with one of the thinner gold chains around his neck. “Though, I found this handsome older violetblood who ended up going a bit soft on me. He opened up over time. We talked. He had me as a prisoner at first, but things changed as the seasons passed. He invited me aboard his ship as a part of his crew. I stayed.”

 

“But were you still doing all of your revolutionary stuff?” Cronus wondered, thoroughly and wholeheartedly invested in this new take on the Signless. He wondered, in the back of his mind, what Kankri might think of the whole thing. Probably write it off as inappropriate and shameful. _“Wildly uncharacteristic of me”_ came to mind in Kankri’s exact tone of voice. “Because the way we keep hearing it, that’s like, your _thing._ There’s no way you weren’t doing your _thing,_ is there? I mean, shit, you still got executed for it, look at where we are!”

 

“Oh, indeed, I was still very active.” Signless assured him, hands going to his hips. “But I had to do most of my teachings for a time hopping between coasts, or taking on followers aboard our ship. The Captain was very accommodating, though. Always made sure no-one suspicious followed us back.”

 

“Who’d you even work for?!” Cronus asked, practically begging for the answer.

 

Here, Signless gazed back at him with something that Cronus thought might be affection, but that would be too good to be true. But that was before the older troll opened his mouth and answered. “How do you think I knew so quickly that you weren’t my Orphaner, Ampora?”

 

It took Cronus a moment or two longer than it should have. Mostly because - again - he didn’t want to believe it. That would just be too happy a coincidence. It was a one-in-a-billion chance to come across a timeline with a mixture so specific. It was so wholly indulgent in all his private, imagined parallels against himself and Kankri; so beautifully pieced together and fabricated from chance that he could write a goddamn song about it. The very idea spat in the face of everything he’d learned about Alternia so far. A day once existed where he hoped he would find just such a timeline as this, but that had been an eternity ago.

 

Yet now that the possibility was placed bare before him, Cronus felt those old stirrings in him again. His dead eyes went alight, alive with intrigue in seconds flat.

 

Signless reached for Cronus’s chin in his stunned silence, and turned his head one way, then the other, checking him over. The older troll had to actually reach _up,_ because Cronus still had a few inches on him in height, despite lacking in sweeps by comparison. “To be fair, it really is shocking, how much you look like him. You could almost fool me if you had the bigger scars and a little more hair on you.”

 

Cronus thought he felt his face changing color. He already knew he was smiling like a fucking idiot, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re not fucking with me right now, are you?” He checked. “You really worked with him?”

 

“I did much more than just _work_ with him, but yes.” Signless drew his hands back. He paused, then added: “I have a proposition for you, if you would hear it.”

 

 _“Please,”_ said Cronus.

 

“Well, seeing as I am now dead, I have all the time in the world, but little idea of where to spend it.” Signless said. “However, I do have an idea of where I _want_ to be -”

 

“I can help!” Cronus blurted out, throwing his hands up emphatically. “Shit, it ain’t like I got anything better to do! And I can go back to my group anytime I want, we’re all stuck in this shifty motherfuckin’ limbo for eternity _anyway.”_

 

Signless laughed. “You really want to help me, just like that?”

 

“Fuck yes!” Cronus crossed his arms, his smile turning smug. “I’ve been wandering the bubbles way longer than you, so I’m pretty much a pro at this point! I’ll show you the ropes. And once you find where you wanna be it’s just a matter of staying there, and knowing how to get back if you leave. It’s tricky, but it’s not impossible. I’ll totally show you!” He pointed at Signless and added, almost demanding: “But you damn well better have some stories ready for me as a trade!”

 

“Why, Cronus!” Signless placed a hand against his chest, feigning insult. “I’m surprised at you. How could I spend time with the spitting image of my Captain and _not_ tell you our stories?”

 

Cronus pumped his fists. Score! Fucking _jackpot!_ A Signless who was _super close_ to his Alternian double, _and_ who wanted to talk to him, and not just for whatever fleeting moments might pass before the bubbles divided again! It was his lucky fucking day. He felt his pusher swelling in his chest, he was so excited. He turned and gestured off towards the distance, to an unknown horizon that Cronus knew would eventually meander into a different bubble, a different memory. “Let’s go this way! Tell me _everything.”_

 

“Everything?” Checked Signless, falling into line behind Cronus’s footsteps.

 

“Everything,” Cronus repeated.

 

“Alright.” Signless agreed. He added, in a tone so somber that Cronus almost missed it: “Though you should bear in mind that you may not enjoy everything that you hear.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cronus starts to get some of his wires crossed near the end here.
> 
> **CW: implied/referenced slave trade ; implied/referenced past abuse**
> 
> Blanket warning of graphic violence/abuse/etc. for the descriptions of some of the things Dualscar got up to in his career, some of which are being covered/will be covered in Countdown To Dawn.

“What are we aimin’ for, again?”

 

“A ship.”

 

“A ship?”

 

“Yes.” Signless supplied again, in a gentle reminder, “The R.E.S. Angel’s Light.”

 

“Wow, cool fuckin’ name!” Cronus remarked, excited by the implications of it. “Did I do that for the extra creepy factor?”

 

They had been wandering the bubbles now for what felt like hours; whether it was longer or shorter was a mystery that would never be solved with the lack of a concept of time. But at least it wasn't hours poorly spent: Signless filled most of their travel time indulging Cronus and his questions, or - alternatively - telling a few stories of his own. It was difficult not to when he had such a willing audience, after all. Cronus was just as happy to listen to Signless’s stories as he was to hear things about Orphaner Dualscar - or “Captain”, as Signless continued to call him. (“I could call him Cronus, like I did when we were alone, but that could get confusing for us both very quickly,” was the explanation Signless supplied when asked.)

 

Cronus had never in his life imagined he would learn so much. The things he did on Alternia! The treasures he pillaged, the trophies he had! An entire crew to call his own, at least _three_ different shore-side estates, and enough social and political pull to basically get away with _whatever he wanted._ Sure, he did hear there was some slave trade involved, and maybe he wasn’t always the nicest Captain, but it was Alternia, after all. Given what he heard in passing snips and pieces from the others, it wasn’t exactly populated with a society that shone favor on the merciful. With that in mind, he figured he could overlook the darker parts of Dualscar’s business, because holy hell! He was big news, and he was _badass,_ and he was _so powerful!_ Besides, he surely wouldn’t do any serious damage unless it was something well-deserved.

 

(Signless could see that Cronus was not absorbing one single iota of the heavy price that came with his Captain’s social status. But in the interest of keeping his company and not pushing the poor boy away with aggressive hints, he stayed quiet. He continued his stories. Eventually, he figured, _something_ would crack through all that hair product and that obscenely thick skull of his. He never got anywhere being impatient with his Captain, either. Slow and steady was key with all Amporas, it seemed.)

 

They ended up covering everything, over the course of their travel, from how Signless wound up on Dualscar's ship to the structure of the pariah’s inner circle. Apparently, as he told it, Signless wasn’t just some off-hand rambling preacher with a straggling group of listeners. For sweeps, in fact, it went unnoticed by the public at large that he had an _entire hidden community_ of followers. Something started up originally by his Disciple, he insisted, who had been a woman that mostly kept to herself. She looked out for a handful of fringe-walkers and start-up families that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of Alternian society proper. Then he met her, and the families grew. He claimed the trolls who spoke of his teachings and stayed in the towns and cities were in the minority. Most of his people before he died were just passing through from one checkpoint to another, literally spreading his ideas by word of mouth and vanishing before local authorities could catch them. They had developed a completely separate society - away from the Condesce, away from the legislacerators and the slavers, away from _everyone._ They started out in the forest, where his Disciple once lived with her lusus, then moved to a network of abandoned underground brooding caverns on the suggestion of his Mother.

 

 _That_ whole entire tangent stole Cronus's attention for most of the walk, until he remembered he was supposed to help lead the older troll through the dream bubbles. That led them back to his question about why Dualscar had named his ship with such an ominous title as the _Angel’s Light_ while Cronus split his attention, keeping track of their surroundings.

 

“The Captain told me it was always called that, near as he knew.” Signless answered, explaining, “The name didn't start with him. But he did apparently become the one to tack a reputation to it. As for _creepy factor,_ I think that might be circumstantial.” He regarded Cronus with some curiosity and asked, “Are angels known as harbingers of ill omens in your world as well?”

 

“Sweet holy mother grub, _yes.”_ Cronus groaned, looking at Signless over his shoulder. He tried to appear upset, but he was so enraptured by the conversation that he couldn't stop smiling.

 

“Then you can safely assume the name is an apt one for an Orphaner’s ship,” Signless told him.

 

Cronus continued to take them down their current pathway. Right now, they were in a dense, canopied forest, with rays of sunlight breaking through here and there between the leaves. But who the hell knew when that would change. He didn’t recognize this place at all.

 

“Are you thinking about where you wanna go?” He checked.

 

“Every moment I can spare,” Signless reported. “I remember what you said. We have to subtly encourage the dreams to intersect in a certain way.”

 

Cronus chuckled. “Kind of. It honestly all feels like a buncha hoofbeast waste no matter what to me,” he said. “But I do find that keeping the destination in mind helps.”

 

“I will let you know when I see something more familiar.”

 

Satisfied with that, they continued. Cronus walked at a steady clip, but Signless kept up with him easily. Dead leaves, strips of bark, and other natural debris crunched underneath their feet as they weaved between the trees. “Was I the only Orphaner in your timeline?” Asked Cronus. “I never seem to hear about any others. Is that just how people call me? _Orphaner Dualscar,_ most terrifying troll sailing the seas?”

 

“Oh, no. Captain was the most feared and famous Orphaner, but not the only one by far.” Signless explained, “‘Orphaner’ denotes a special position under the Empress. Like threshecutioners. Have you heard of those?”

 

“Mmm, kinda.” Cronus only knew whatever others told him (which wasn’t much), and of that, only what he cared to remember (which was even less).

 

“Yes. So, as a job description, Orphaners are responsible for helping to keep Her Condescension’s lusus fed. They did this by slaying the lusii of other, younger trolls, hence the name. They usually went after the ocean ones, since an Orphaner is often sea-bound anyway, then fed them to Gl'bgolyb. This way, the Empress never had to cease her latest conquering campaigns across the galaxy just to rush home and keep her lusus placated, so the Vast Glub remained little more than an empty threat that the Empress could use if her people got a bit too plucky.”

 

Cronus's ear-fins twitched upright as Signless described these duties in detail, grinning all across his cheeks. They passed through another intersection as they exited the trees; they were in a grassy field now. Cronus didn't recognize it, but it definitely didn’t look Beforan, so he assumed they were staying on the right track. “So, we were real important then,” he said, “Us Orphaners.”

 

“In the context of Alternian society, yes.” Signless confirmed, tone remaining passive, “Very much so.”

 

“And we really fed that big ol' hellish horrorterror thing the lusii of other trolls?” Asked Cronus. “Like, would we go the whole nine yards and actually hunt them? Why not just regular sea-beasts and things?”

 

“Gl’bgolyb could sustain herself on any sea-beasts which strayed too close to her body to be consumed once caught, but the creatures that were stupid enough to do so were typically less than a morsel's worth in comparison to her size,” replied Signless. “And it was not always a guarantee she would obtain enough to make a meal on her own. She could not move to hunt because she was far too massive; the slightest shift in her position was known to rouse the seas until they chopped and frothed. Providing a hunting of lusii ensured that she would never go hungry, and there was a very stringent requirement placed on the poundage of flesh an Orphaner was required to turn in for their contribution.”

 

“God!” Cronus exclaimed, snorting mid-response. “That’s so much _work._ Like, that was _starting_ to sound amazing, but then you made it sound like a goddamn class assignment or something.”

 

“I was privy to one of the Captain's feeding rounds before we were on steady concupiscent terms.” Signless went on, describing the event as much as he could stand - thinking on it made his expression shift until it had soured. “Completing these hunts for Gl’bgolyb was one of his great prides in life; again, as I mentioned with his slaving trade, he accepted nothing less than the best.” Signless glanced up a moment, observing the odd quality of the sky as they continued. Veiled ribbons of green and yellow streaked between the clouds in little auroras as he spoke. “He took down three whole aquatic lusii. The first two were dragged aboard and some of us in cargo were made to help strap them down for transport. He liked to leave them what he called _‘twitching a little bit’,_ and we had to prevent them escaping from feeding time. Those two were alone. But the last one was accompanied by a young seadweller.”

 

“Oh. Shit.” Cronus chuckled, hopping over a deep fissure in the earth that crossed their path. “Did he still take it down?”

 

Signless hesitated, then admitted after a moment, “He did.”

 

“ _Damn,_ that’s cold.” Said Cronus, all teeth and smiles as he said it. He never turned around at that point, either - thus he completely missed the look of frustration and restraint on Signless’s face. “Shame about the kid, I guess. But a guy’s gotta do what he can to protect society from falling in the face of a giant Glub that could kill the whole planet, right?”

 

“I suppose.” Signless agreed, though his tone said otherwise.

 

The hint flew right over Cronus’s head. “I guess it is what it is on Alternia.” He remarked, “Piss off the Empress, go against the word of the Empire, or whatever, and we take down your lusii.”

 

Signless immediately cut in before the other could start on his next sentence. “Actually, there was no structured hit list in place for which lusii were safe to hunt.”

 

That got Cronus to stop.

 

He turned, regarding Signless with a bewildered look. He almost lost his cigarette - again.

 

The older troll stared back at him, patient, white-filmed pinkish irises focused on him. “That little violetblood that I saw couldn’t have been past their second molt. There was no special reason why Captain decided he would take down that specific lusus, beyond that it was big, and its weight in meat combined with the other two met the requirements for feeding Gl’bgolyb. Exceeded it, in fact, if memory serves.”

 

“So, I - he just…” Cronus pursed his lips in disbelief. The words didn’t sit right in his mouth. “...He just killed it anyway? Because it was just _there?”_

 

Signless shrugged his shoulders and replied, in a phrase that was eerily rehearsed, “All actions honoring the Alternian Empire, be they violent or benign, are forgiven in the glory of the Empress.”

 

Cronus retaliated the moment those words left the other’s mouth. “But that lusus belonged to another violet! Wouldn’t he have at least left it alone to give one of his own blood color a fighting chance? Don’t you people have that weird situation with your castes where the colder ones are supposed to be all superior and shit? Why would we cut down other trolls with our same color?”

 

Signless furrowed his brow. Some of his frustration slipped. “The other two lusii belonged to a pair of violets as well. Was he supposed to pass up the opportunity to kill them just to spare a few trolls? For that matter, did you just altogether miss the part where I told you _in detail_ about the fact that Captain was a world-renowned slaver as well as an honored Orphaner?”

 

“No! But you said it was mostly warmer colors! How’s that at all similar to slicing a _violet’s_ chances at succeeding in life?” Demanded Cronus. He paused for a beat, then glared at Signless, squaring off his shoulders, putting his hands on his hips. “You and every other Signless always told me I was the most ruthless Orphaner in the whole ocean; that I did everything right in the name of the Empire!”

 

“If you were under the impression that Captain’s actions were in any way morally sound, even to his own color, you haven’t been paying attention.” Signless replied, shoulders relaxed. He remained where he was - Cronus’s posturing didn’t scare him. Whatever the young violetblood had for him, his Captain had always been ten times scarier, if not more. “And you _clearly_ absorbed nothing about the truth of Alternian life if you thought the only people Captain enslaved for coin were enemies of the crown. Slave trade favored the warm and middle hues, but it was possible - if very rare - for one in a colder caste to be traded as well. Often for a much higher price, and always as an insult. It was used as a last resort to strip someone of their caste privileges, short of sending them to the Grand Highblood or feeding them to Gl’bgolyb.”

 

Cronus tried to cut in, clearly horrified at this news. Signless stopped him with a hand up and kept talking. “And while we’re on the subject, there was never any stopping an Orphaner - or _anyone_ \- from harming the chances of others in their same hue. Our caste issues are far more complicated than I have the energy to cover with you right now. Boiling it down to ‘lowbloods versus highbloods’ is horrifically redundant and dismisses many of the inherent struggles of the mid and higher castes. True, there was a definite trickle-down effect which disproportionately bore down on the warmbloods over time. But as I learned in my time with the Captain, dismantling this unfair system would require a much more delicate hand than simply revolting against the highbloods. Beneath the thumb of the Empress, only one rule prevailed, and that was survival of the fittest. If you weren’t fit, you didn’t survive. Your blood color mattered not. Even my Captain suffered the scars of this price; being an Orphaner of such status didn’t just fall miraculously into his lap.”

 

He almost didn’t want to ask. Cronus took one look at the stern, somber expression on Signless’s face, and his pusher almost pulsed to a halt, yet the question left him anyway. It was always hard for him to keep his curiosities to himself, even if he didn’t always like the answers. “What the hell d’you mean by that?”

 

Signless watched Cronus carefully as he responded. There was a concern for the boy in the way that he lowered his voice, the way he quietly catalogued any potential signs of distress. “They took his music away, Cronus.” He said. Because if this Ampora was anything like his Captain -

 

Yep. That assumption was correct. Cronus had an all-over body flinch like he’d just been forced up against a monstrous flame.

  
“And I want to be clear that even that, by far,” - and here Signless looked so very, very _sad -_ “is the _least_ of what was done to him before he assumed power. I spent _sweeps_ with him both on the ship and off, and I still don’t think he ever told me his entire story. The Captain was a very private man. Right up until the last day I saw him, he was embarrassed to admit his own anxieties or show any sort of weakness.”

 

Cronus was now very uncomfortable. Signless could see it through the tension in his frame, the way his mouth pinched and pursed as he chewed on his cigarette and angrily stuffed his hands into his jean pockets, despite the way the strange material hugged his hips. It wasn’t so difficult to read him: he was very much like Dualscar, but younger, and _louder._ Not as practiced at hiding his tells. Signless wondered if this was at all similar to how his Dualscar had been in his youth. How long had it taken before the former crew had snuffed that fire right out of him?

 

Signless breathed in, then sighed slowly. “Cronus, I can understand your fascination with your reincarnation in my world. I really can.”

 

“It’s just…” Cronus trailed off, then let out a huff, fiddling with something in his pocket. He had a Zippo lighter stored there that he almost never used. “Not really what I pictured.”

 

“I know,” said Signless. He crossed the grass and reached out, pressing a hand to the other’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry. I wish I could give you something prettier when it comes to most of his history. I just feel like you, more than anyone, deserve to know the whole truth of who the Captain really is - not just what you imagined him to be.”

 

Cronus scowled, lines creasing into his features that weren’t present when he smiled. He said nothing for a while, but he did dig the toes of his boots into the grass, snubbing the delicate green blades out of bitterness and self-reflection. Signless watched and waited; he planned to speak up, to say something that might get Cronus to look a little less upset, but the younger troll beat him to the next point of conversation.

 

“So you’re saying I basically became a fucking monster on Alternia,” he concluded.

 

“Many of his past actions were indeed deplorable, but I claimed no such thing.” Corrected Signless, ever patient.

 

Cronus looked up, meeting Signless’s gaze with a worried look of his own. He was confused, and hurt, and perplexed. “He did everything that you would have hated when you were alive. How in the fuck did you get convinced to stay?”

 

Signless paused, thoughtful. “Well, it wasn’t really a matter of ‘convincing’, I don’t think -”

 

“So, what, he _made you_ do it?” Asked Cronus, terrified of the thought.

 

“No, never.” Signless denounced that idea _very_ quickly. “He _invited_ me to be his equal, remember? The only part of our time together where I never consented was the stretch I spent holed up in his ship’s cargo. But things did change, Cronus. It took a lot of time, but they changed. _He_ changed. I went with the Captain because he respected me enough to offer me the choice. I didn’t stay for any reason other than that was the decision I made on my own.”

 

Cronus didn’t appear convinced. He searched Signless’s face for any indication of something different. During the extended pause that followed as a result, Signless left him to ponder, and then added: “I mean what I say, I promise. When things first started, of course, I thought it odd – particularly given the way we met, and our caste difference. Or my lack of one, I should say. Regardless, that made it very clear to me that he refused to force his hand.” He flicked his eyes up, eyebrows pressing together as he crossed his arms. “Granted, on the off occasion this would result in him near- _begging_ me for something or the other that he wanted. But if I refused him, he did stop. For a man who was otherwise so cold and callous in manner, he was almost uncharacteristically sensitive. Which didn’t make sense to me, until he finally told me some stories one day from when he was young.”

 

Cronus scrunched his nose in distaste. “So you pitied him because he happened to have a particular kind of sob story even after everything you just told me he did?”

 

“Again, no.” Signless sighed. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Actually, that was what he thought of me in the beginning, as well, but still – no. I didn’t pity him because I wanted to _fix_ anything. Helping the Captain through the ghosts of his own demons wasn’t the thing that attracted me to him.”

 

“So what did, then?” Asked Cronus. “And how did you ever manage to get over how he’d made that name for himself?”

 

“In several instances, I didn’t.” Signless explained. “Skipping over the fact that he was active as an Orphaner for many sweeps before I was even born, I’ll use a more specific example. There was a young olive he mated with during the start of my imprisonment.”

 

He slowed down here, taking a few breaths, and a moment to collect his thoughts. Cronus waited, never interrupting – although Signless’s use of the word _mating_ left him with a chill sitting at the top of his spine. “He locked her into an incredibly unbalanced red relationship to stick out the breeding season and it ended atrociously,” said Signless. “His actions ultimately destroyed her; I never saw her again after the breeding lands that sweep. When we were back on the ship – hell, even before that - I was _furious_ with him. He later spoke with me about it; expressed that he felt guilty about what he did. I was the closest he could get to confessing without trying to find where she was taken to. He never asked my forgiveness, and I never gave it. But I could sense all the while that there was something in him that he was…I guess, _pushing down_ in order to mentally reconcile his personal standards against his, um, career choice. Even as a slaver, he had a very misguided sort of personal code. And I could see how his perspective was shifting as we spent time together.”

 

Signless fidgeted for a moment with one of the red-jeweled rings on his right ring finger. Two amethysts flanked it on either side. “I think I loved the fact that he was willing to try – that he wanted to make that kind of change, even knowing true redemption was unattainable. He didn't set forth on that path for anyone else’s approval; he did it simply because he felt it was the better choice.”

 

Cronus looked down, away from the other troll, fiddling with his Zippo lighter in his pocket. His eyes slid shut as he gnawed on his cigarette, the stick bobbing up and down between his lips. He didn't voice his distress, but Signless saw the slouch in his shoulders and the way his ear-fins pressed back. He knew that there was some contemplation happening. He _almost_ felt bad for being so honest, but he hoped that it would give Cronus something to consider - even with the fact that they were both dead.

 

“He carried a lot of anger and heartlessness.” Signless said, “He was not a kind man when I met him. He condoned many terrible things, and I’m sure he's done more than his fair share of horrors. Even when we were together, he was never perfect. But when I knew him personally, he also tried his best to become a better person _because of_ that. He extended mercy and demonstrated understanding even to trolls who had every right to hate him; and he never asked for anything in return. Our situation wasn't something that could be so neatly fit into a single box, but it was ours. I wanted to watch him and be with him as he grew. I like to believe he wanted that with me, too.”

 

Signless touched his hand to Cronus’s shoulder again, fingers pressing around the curve of it in a gentle squeeze as some of the tension bled out of the other’s frame after a long while thinking on what they exchanged. Cronus lifted his head, preparing to say something. He didn’t want to leave Signless behind in the bubbles without getting at least a few final answers out of him.

 

But when he opened his mouth to do so, it occurred to him that their environment had changed again while they had stopped paying attention. Cronus shrugged Signless off when the realization clicked, and looked around, bridge of his nose scrunching in frustration.

 

“Aw, dammit! These stupid bubbles!” He grumbled, “Really wish they wouldn’t just _switch_ on ya like this, barely any warning or _anything._ You quit payin’ ‘em any mind for two fucking seconds and they pull this crap.” Signless seemed to notice it as well, ears pricking up through thick, dark curls of his hair as he took in their new location.

 

They were on a small strip of beach in the dead of night, the shore of which was more rocks and well-weathered pebbles than sand. Soft laps of foamy saltwater licked gently at their shoes, as the dream bubble had deposited them right in the surf. Before them stretched the almost endless span of the ocean; the sky was almost black, something that Signless recognized as a quality of the Dark Season. They were also far removed from the cities, because he could clearly see the bright pinpricks of every single star between the clouds.

 

“I’m sorry.” Cronus apologized, now concerned that the bubbles may have somehow tossed them off track from where they were trying to go. Even though his method was far from an exact science, it was still a struggle he preferred not to deal with, and he was annoyed that the ever-shifting landscape of the dreaming had intervened with his current process. He turned to Signless, webbed fingers raking through stiff curls of hair. “This might make everything take a lot longer. I have no idea where they took us.”

 

“Actually, this might be a gift of sorts.”

 

Cronus’s ear-fins flicked up. He blinked a few times, and felt a rush of hope welling up in his pusher. “Wait – really?” Then, almost pleading for a miracle, “You think you know where we are?”

 

Signless turned from Cronus, looking behind them, down at the fading gradient of the earth. From the rocky shore, to a mish-mashed, meandering ribbon of dark sand, to grassy dirt, all retreating into a distant forest of piney trees, the peaks of them breaking up the skyline. The woods were so thick and the sky was so dark that the trees themselves plunged everything beyond their threshold into darkness. Even with the low-light vision common to their species, Signless could only make out the shapes of the foremost trunks and the ghosts of their needles and branches. Ominous to any other passerby, but not to him. His eyes went wide in recognition.

 

“I don’t just think. I know _exactly_ where we are.” He pointed to the forest, gesturing vaguely to the far-off heart of it that neither of them could see. “One of the main entrances to the old caverns is through there.” Signless looked around them at the shore again. And then it hit him. “We once ran the ship ashore on this exact beach!”

 

Cronus took a brief moment to give silent praise to whatever deity might listen, thoughts lifting in thanks for the miracle of where they had ended up. That was the internal process. The _external_ process was Cronus making a long, marked exclamatory noise and raising his fists to the heavens in victory. “Holy shit!!” He cried. “It worked! It really worked!! I don’t even _know_ how that happened, man, I think that was all you!”

 

“Not all me!” Signless reached forward and cupped Cronus’s face in his hands. Cronus froze for a moment; his arms were still up and he wasn’t in much of a position to react swiftly to unexpected touching. So when Signless molded callused palms against his high cheekbones, leaned in, and kissed him right on the mouth, he...stood there, mostly, with his eyes wide and the height of his arms going slack. Thankfully, the kiss didn’t last very long - but the heat of it and the snap of electricity that rocketed down his spine after gave Cronus _plenty_ to think about. “I never would have navigated this place so quickly without your help.” Signless insisted, “I would have wandered for ages. Thank you.”

 

He released a laugh in response which was painfully awkward, even by his own standards. Cronus hoped the color wasn’t showing too much in his cheeks. (No such luck, though, because the tips of his ear-fins were fair game and Signless could see the color pooling along the very edges. He grinned.) “Y-You’re, uh, you’re welcome I guess? It’s not...I mean yeah, I’ve been around here longer, but I promise it’s mostly just throwing darts and hoping for the best.”

 

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure that you had _some_ hand in making this possible. Besides, we’ve had a good talk you and I, haven’t we?”

 

His hands were still on Cronus’s cheeks. Cronus had the fleeting thought that he never wanted them to leave. He looked back into Signless’s eyes, and he had to try so, _so_ hard not to overlap this Alternian stranger’s face with the younger, less weathered features of one Kankri Vantas.

 

“Um, yeah.” He agreed aloud, “Good talk.” Cronus took a moment, then cleared his throat. “Should, uh, should I help you find your ship? D’you need me to go lookin’ with ya?”

 

Signless chuckled. His thumbs rubbed down along the edges of Cronus’s cheekbones. It was such a simple touch, but it was _so nice._ Not all nice things could last, though - he pulled away after tracing those lines over a few times. “Getting tired of my stories already?”

 

“No!!” Cronus exclaimed, hands still up to either side of him. “No, no, no, never! I’ve loved your stories, seriously!”

 

No, the trouble was that Cronus could feel his thoughts starting to shift. If he was drawing active comparisons between this Signless and his Kankri, then it was time to quit while he was ahead. He didn’t want to even _begin_ trying to untangle that mess of emotions right now. Thinking up a sensible excuse, he replied, “It’s just that I should probably be getting back.”

 

Signless made a face, hands on his hips. Was that a _pout?_ “What happened to having all the time in the world?”

 

“It - I -” Cronus clamped his mouth shut for a moment, gills flaring in alarm. Christ, but he wished this Signless wasn’t so _playful._ At least with all of the others, it was easier to break it off. They were all so _somber._ But no - the one Signless he could have an extended conversation with, and it was the one that kissed him and pouted at him and made running sassy commentary. Such was the turn of his luck.

 

After a thought, Cronus tried his best to deflect with a compromise. “I could...visit?” He offered.

 

“Mmmm, how will you know a way to find my ship if you’ve never seen it?” Signless wondered.

 

Cronus rolled his tongue over his teeth a moment before answering. “Honestly, it shouldn’t be that hard. If I can find my way back here, I know that I’ll be close to you. From here, if I can just concentrate on looking for _you,_ I can probably figure it out. Because I know you. I don’t know the ship, but I know you.”

 

Signless considered this, then gave a satisfied nod. “If you’re sure.” He added, with a smile, “I would appreciate it if you stopped by. I’m sure I will meet others that I recognize from different timelines, if there are so many duplicates, as you say. But if I’m the only one dead in mine thus far, I don’t know how long it will be before I see my particular versions. I would be happy to have a familiar face now and then.”

 

Cronus continued to smile back, though he felt his nerves starting to slip. “Uh, okay. I mean, if you really don’t mind, yeah. I’ll drop by sometime. See how you’re doin’. Thanks for putting up with me and all my questions, Kank -”

 

He stopped.

 

Signless arched an eyebrow, but he never faltered in his smirk. Cronus had to take a hot second to correct himself. “- Ssssignless,” he eked out.

 

Signless wouldn’t let it go. “You almost said my name.”

 

“Yeah, well, _my_ Kankri is basically you, but from Beforus, so it’s really fucking weird. I’m getting my wires crossed, sue me.” Cronus grumbled, “And I don’t like calling you ‘Signless’ all the time ‘cause that was something you used with your followers, wasn’t it? And that’s not me. I’m not one’a your community in-crowd.”

 

After a moment, Signless suggested gently: “Why not ‘Commander’?”

 

Cronus paused, then squinted at him. “Why not _what_ now?”

 

“Commander,” Signless repeated. “I call my Cronus by ‘Captain’ because it kept my stories straight when speaking with you, but that was also the phrase I used around the rest of the crew. He disliked airing his name in the open. After we made the ship our own, he gave me the title of Commander. Would that work for you?”

 

Cronus had to swallow the nervous lump in his throat. In truth? No, it would _not_ work. It was _literally the opposite_ of what Cronus wanted. That felt way too much like he was being placed in close proximity to the idea of Dualscar - which Cronus wanted to avoid almost as much as he wanted to steer clear of thinking of Signless and Kankri as the same.

 

Unfortunately, _Commander_ also happened to have a very nice ring to it that he much preferred over _Signless._

 

Against all better judgment, Cronus released a long sigh. “Yeah, okay. Why not.”

 

“Are you sure?” Checked Signless. “You don’t sound very confident.”

 

“No no, it’s cool! We’re cool,” said Cronus, insistent. “It’s a strong title. _Commander._ I like it. I can do that.”

 

Signless smiled wide. He patted the younger troll companionably on the shoulder. “I will see you soon then.” He replied, “Thank you again for your help, Cronus.”

 

Cronus thought about the other troll Signless called by that name, and watched as Signless walked out into the surf. When he was about calves-deep into the water, he paused for a moment, then lifted up one foot. And then the other. Cronus had no idea how he was so good at manipulating the dreamscape to fucking _walk on top of the water,_ but he had to admit, the sight was awe-inspiring in its own way. “Any time,” he said.

 

Signless gave him one last look over his shoulder. He waved, and Cronus waved back. Cronus found out just how fast Signless could run by watching him dart off across the water to find his ocean-bound home, and tried again to course-correct his thoughts when he watched for what had to be just a little too long.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get to steamy things this chapter, but it just did not happen!! Alas. Have an accidental side serving of CroKri drama.
> 
> **CW: unwanted romantic advances ; harassment**
> 
> And I guess now Cronus will have character development by bangin a hot older troll because that's it that's my Grand Master Plan you guys. THAT'S IT
> 
> I love writing him as a sweetie, but this kind of Bro Come On Man behavior is fun to iron out of him too.
> 
>  **IMPORTANT EDIT:** I had to split the next chapter in two so I also updated this one with some extra content. I don't like doing this unless I absolutely have to, but I'm trying to stay under a certain chapter count. Blugh. Sorry guys! (If you've read this chapter before, scroll until you hit the horizontal line break, or CTRL+F: “Commander?” )

The next time Cronus found himself alone with a Vantas, it was with the Vantas that he personally knew from his own timeline. After wandering the dream bubbles with the Commander, Cronus stayed long enough to watch and make sure it didn’t seem like the poor old bastard would fuck up or get especially lost. Then he spent some time walking around on his own, until he was positive he could find his way back to that strip of rocky beach framed by a backdrop of green and black trees in case he felt like it. Then he went back. Back to the same tired group of trolls, full of people who hated each other or had fallen ( _were falling_ ) out of touch, or just kept to their own little two-person cliques whenever applicable. Getting blown up and sent to a limbo-esque afterlife had done nothing to bring their lot together; Meenah had her little pet project going, but as was predictable of the Crowned Laziest Heiress Ever, Cronus could see her losing steam every time she met resistance.

 

If the player correlations of the Alternian reset was to be believed, it was still _so difficult_ for him to grasp that this apparently iron-fisted, all-conquering, and downright _ruthless_ Condescension that ruled over Signless’s timeline was their same fuchsia player. That Her Imperious Condescension was in fact the very Meenah Peixes lounging about the bubbles, making copious amounts of fish puns and halfway begging people to help her take down some all-powerful demon. Hadn’t she completely fucked off at one point from becoming the next Empress? Cronus _definitely_ remembered something along those lines, because Aranea couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it. How did _she_ end up being such a powerful and reviled ruler on Alternia? Truly, it boggled the goddamn mind.

 

Not that he could be bothered with that now. Cronus was diverting his attentions to far more attractive things at present.

 

Sitting beside him on a park bench, bundled up in that obnoxiously bright red sweater that Porrim had knitted for him ages ago, was Kankri. He had his legs tucked underneath him on the bench, a book of some sort or another open in his lap, his nose dipped down under the lip of the loose turtleneck, death-whitened eyes scanned the pages. Cronus had been sitting next to him now for about five minutes, by his rough estimation, but Kankri hadn’t noticed him at all. He also apparently hadn’t noticed that he’d switched locations in the bubbles. Cronus was the one who was already in this nondescript sunny little park in the Land of Fuck Knows Where; Kankri had materialized beside him as if by fucking serendipity, looking exactly the way he did right now, so wonderfully and adorably absorbed in what he was reading.

 

He could be an infuriating asshole and a horrific little shit sometimes, but Cronus was man enough to admit when he was a sucker for a certain aesthetic - and _boy,_ did Kankri embody the perfect picture of his aesthetic. Wide hips and a soft frame, all delicate features and a soft, soothing voice. Not that Cronus could see very much of it - the sweater was so big and fluffy it hid most of what Kankri had on him - but Cronus could fill in the blanks pretty damn well, especially with all of his visits to Signless’s execution spot. He imagined with the way all his Alternian variances looked, Kankri surely wasn’t too far off by comparison. And the bonus? Even at his most irritating, Kankri had a certain touch of cuteness to him that just made Cronus feel _all sorts_ of jumbled up in his pusher; he could forgive the other’s long-winded ramblings in favor of just watching him move his lips for _hours_ without complaint.

 

Weirdly enough, he still ended up absorbing _a lot_ of what Kankri yammered on about, but it wasn’t perfect. Some days Cronus just wanted to look at him and admire. And, of course, try to get in another shot at his chances with the lad.

 

Kind of like right now.

 

Deciding he had waited around long enough, Cronus smirked, and cleared his throat to get Kankri’s attention.

 

It _almost_ didn’t work - Kankri looked over, then went straight back to his book. It required a double-take for him to realize he wasn’t alone and that he was in a different spot from before, and when it sank in, he practically jumped out of his own skin and slammed shut the book in his lap with a gasp.

 

“Oh, my God! Ampora!!” Right off the bat, they were starting with a scolding. Fantastic. “That is so terribly imposing of you to just _sit there_ with someone being unaware of your presence! Honestly, have you learned nothing from what I told you about proper manners?!”

 

“Aw, you’re just mad ‘cause I scared the piss outta you.” Cronus laughed, grinning from ear to ear.

 

Kankri made an indignant, squawking sort of noise. “I was not scared, I was _startled!_ There is a very distinct difference! Anyway, how long have you been sitting there?!”

 

“Oh, not long.” Cronus asked back, waggling his eyebrows, “How long since the bubbles dropped you on the bench next to me?”

 

“That’s impossible. I was minding my own business inside my hive, _reading.”_ Kankri insisted, “It must have been _your_ wandering thoughts that made this intersection happen.”

 

The playfulness went out of him for a moment. He rolled his eyes. “Of course it was,” Cronus panned in disagreement. How was Kankri so sure it wasn’t because he’d been sitting there and thinking to himself _Gee I wonder what Cronus is up to right now?_ No? Not his fault? It was never his fault. No matter. It wasn’t worth arguing. “Answerin’ your question better, chief, I’ve been here long enough to catch you readin’ a few pages. That’s it. I promise.”

 

“Mmmh.” Kankri wasn’t happy with the answer, but Cronus could see by his scrutinizing stare that he searched for an ulterior motive and found nothing. So with nothing else to go on, he took Cronus at his word, though he did cast the violetblood a sidelong glance. “Fine. But in the future, I would appreciate it if you would alert me the _moment_ you are found unexpectedly in my presence. Being thrown about at random through these awful dreamscapes is stressful enough as is.”

 

“It’s uh, kinda not really _random_ per se, but alright.” Cronus replied.

 

Kankri shot him the _most deadly_ glare. Cronus stuck his hands up. “Right, yep, never mind. Redacting previous statement, annnd...redacted. Proper warning with unexpected visitors. Got it.”

 

Kankri’s shoulders slouched as he released a long, irritated sigh. His eyes hooded shut for a spell, but Cronus could see him rolling them beneath the lids. “If we can now consider that matter closed, may I help you with something?”

 

“Ooooh, I bet there’s _tons_ of things you could help me with,” said Cronus.

 

Kankri recoiled with every fiber of his being. “Eugh! Are you really going to be like this today?”

 

Cronus’s expression went slightly puzzled. It was a bit of an act, though - he knew exactly what he sounded like, but he was feeling good about today. Maybe today, of all eternal days out of infinity, would be the day Kankri Vantas looked at him for longer than five seconds _and_ would have actual longing in his eyes. “Be like what, chief?”

 

With a scowl, Kankri said: “Don’t play innocent. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

 

(Well, shoot, the lad kinda had him there.)

 

Cronus’s turn to sigh. “Okay, fine. The answer is yes. Kind of? I don’t see what the big deal is though?”

 

“Ugh, by the Mother Grub.” Kankri grumbled, opening his book back up and turning away. Turning him down. Cronus felt an anxious clawing in his chest. “I am _not_ indulging your concupiscent nonsense today.”

 

“Ahhh, Kanny, c’mon.” Cronus cooed at him. “How can you say those things? It ain’t nonsense. I just wanna take the time to really appreciate you.” He put on his sweetest tone - something gentle and affectionate and smelling of red, maybe just the slightest hint of pale. He scooted closer to Kankri on the bench as the other troll looked up and found himself suddenly and _uncomfortably_ face-to-face with company.

 

“Don’t ‘Kanny’ me!” Was how Kankri’s reaction started. When he realized how close Cronus had gotten, and what he was doing with his pheromones, his expression shut down to a blank slate. He set his jaw, teeth clenched behind full lips that were pursed into a tight line. (Not exactly longing, but Cronus would take it!)

 

Cronus didn’t touch him - he knew he would be fucked if he put even a pinky finger on Kankri without permission - but he didn’t move back to give Kankri his space, either. He purred, vocal chords in his throat kicking up into a cadence of soft seadweller clicks and clatters. Meenah would have recognized the tone of them in an instant; he wasn’t sure how well the other paid attention to those kinds of clues. But if he was as smart as Cronus believed, he knew what it meant anyway.

 

“Chief, c’mon, I’m just askin’ for a shot.” Cronus told him, practically begging with his eyes. And actually begging. (What else could he do? He’d tried everything else!) “We’re both dead already anyway, and it ain’t like Beforus is gonna rise from the grave any time soon! What’ve we got to lose, huh?”

 

He could swear that he smelled an answering scent of pheromones from the other, almost as red as his own, and Cronus thought: _finally._ He had this one in the bag. But then Kankri blinked at him a few times before his eyes narrowed into a leer. “You are absolutely incredible.”

 

Cronus grinned again, hoping for something different. “Awwh, thank you!”

 

“It wasn’t a compliment, you idiot.” Snipped Kankri. “I meant you’re absolutely incredible in that you appear to suffer a very distinct sort of madness that compels you to try the same tired old proposal over and over. Like you aren’t just going to get the same result as the last time, and the time before that, and forever before that, too.”

 

Cronus groaned, confidence faltering a bit. “Kankri, please? I know I don’t gotta explain myself at this point -”

 

“Of course you don’t. You’ve only explained the same motivations to me about fifty different ways.”

 

“- You already know how I feel about you -”

 

“I can’t believe you just _launched_ yourself straight into hitting on me after five minutes of watching me read.” Kankri grumbled, because apparently he _was not done_ roasting Cronus over an open fire, and it was fucking killing him. “Do you just exponentially lose what little tact you had the more you keep trying to put yourself out there?”

 

Cronus felt a frustrated hiss bubbling up in his throat. “Am I ever gonna get an opportunity to speak for myself, here?”

 

“And why should I give you that?” Kankri demanded. He shifted away from Cronus a few inches on the bench, setting his legs down to make the motion easier. “I have told you time and again what my answer is, and that answer has not changed! For heaven’s sake, I thought you were finally over this drivel.”

 

 _Drivel?_ Kankri thought this was _drivel?_ Cronus coiled away a little, shooting him a very offended look. Predictably, he ignored it.

 

“What put the thought in your head that you could give it another try _this_ time?” Asked Kankri.

 

“Nothing!” Exclaimed Cronus (which was a lie, if he were honest with himself). He felt an anger welling up in his chest now. “I just thought I wanted to ask you if you’d wanna at least _consider_ it, ‘cause I really think it would work, Kan! We would be so fuckin’ good together! I don’t get what your problem is!”

 

Kankri closed his book again, and stood from the bench. “I’m leaving.” He said, calmly, “And I am not continuing this conversation.”

 

Cronus clenched his jaw, claws scraping his jeans as Kankri walked. He got up and tried to follow him. “Kankri, I _know_ you feel it, too!”

 

“How I feel about you doesn’t matter.” Kankri kept walking, picking up his pace when he heard Cronus’s footsteps crunching over the gravel behind him.

 

“Yes, it does! It _absolutely_ does!”

 

Against all better reasoning - because Cronus could _hear_ the voice of reason screaming in the back of his mind to quit while he still had the chance - he reached out for that boy in the red sweater. Cronus grabbed him by his shoulder and turned him around. He held him there and didn’t let go.

 

Kankri was immediately offended, and upset, and so, _so_ scandalized. “Cronus, if you have _any_ shred of decency, you will release me!”

 

“Why do you keep tellin’ me off when I can smell the color on you?” Cronus demanded. “And don’t you fucking tell me it ain’t there!” He was unaware of the sharpness in his tone; but Kankri could hear it perfectly, and he pinned his ears back with a glare, teeth showing in a threat display that was extremely rare for him.

 

“What do you want me to do?” Kankri demanded. “Say ‘yes’ like you think I’ve always wanted to?”

 

“Why not?! Don’t you?!”

 

“Don’t I what.” Kankri growled.

 

“Want to!!”

 

Kankri’s lips disappeared into that same thin line again as he scowled at Cronus. He tried to shrug the other off, but Cronus had a tight hold on him, and Kankri didn’t have the strength to pull out of it. Eventually, he resigned himself to the fact that there was only one way out of this, although he hated the way he was left without a choice. “Maybe there was once a time where I did.”

 

“So _what happened to that?”_ Asked Cronus, fingers tightening a little.

 

Through clenched teeth, Kankri snarled, “You’re hurting me.”

 

Cronus loosened his hold immediately, but still he persisted. “Why d’you say there _used to be?_ Don’t you still got at least a little bit of that left?”

 

Kankri scoffed, annoyed, and vexed almost beyond recognition. “Why would I want to reward the way you’ve been acting? Begging me to accept your proposal? Following me after I’ve already ended a conversation? Touching me without even bothering to ask?”

 

Cronus wore a very bitter look on his face - then again, so did Kankri. They glared at each other for a while, until - very slowly - Cronus took his hands away. Kankri fixed the sleeves of his sweater, rubbing over one of his shoulders and rolling it in the socket.

 

“So you won’t even think about it?” He asked. “Not even a little?”

 

“Cronus, that’s the problem.” Kankri sighed, “I _have_ thought about it. Many times. Like I said: at one point, ages ago, I might have considered it. Except I detest the way you’ve approached this, and you’ve made it very clear that you don’t consider my input important unless it’s a _yes, and_ to your horrible conduct.”

 

“Okay, so what can I do?” Cronus asked. “You can’t just leave me hangin’ here, chief. I can’t just read you in an instant like that. How am I supposed to change to make this happen?”

 

Kankri stared at him, a perfect picture of stillness. Dead-eyed. Disappointed. “The fact that you even feel the need to ask tells me you haven’t been paying attention.”

 

Cronus felt a twinge in his pusher. He heard a voice so similar to Kankri’s in his head - same soft tones and stern disappointment, but many sweeps older. _You haven’t been paying attention._

 

Kankri watched him. Waiting. But Cronus felt something get stuck in his throat, and he didn’t have an answer. His gills flared and he clamped down around the cigarette between his lips, ear-fins pressed back in submission, lost. Once again, he’d fucked up. Once again, the chance had come and gone.

 

“I just wanna be good to you.” He said, at a loss.

 

“Then, Cronus,” said Kankri, not missing a beat, “You’ve already _long_ lost track of your intentions. I suggest you find them again and really re-think how you want to do this.”

 

He frowned deeply at Kankri in response, chewing on his cigarette while the troll stared back at him with hands on his hips. Kankri arched an eyebrow, daring him to bite back after that statement. Thankfully, it never went that far. Cronus brushed past the shorter troll with a low growl from his chest.

 

“Fine,” he said. “I guess I’ll leave you alone for now.”

 

“That would be best,” Kankri agreed.

 

Cronus didn’t say anything in response, but Kankri knew how this was going to go. He would disappear for a while, as he always did after a rejection. Lick his wounds, tell himself it wasn’t his fault, put on the same over-confident face, then try again. It was the saddest and most frustrating thing Kankri had ever encountered. He had _seen_ true sweetness in Cronus - the others didn’t believe him, but Kankri tried not to let their opinions poison his own. He could really, genuinely be _nice,_ without _faking_ being nice for his own gain. _That_ was the Cronus he wanted to connect with; he just wished Cronus would fucking catch up to him already and understand that.

  
Damara insisted he should be canonized into sainthood for his patience. Neither she nor Latula understood why Kankri didn’t just stop hanging around Cronus altogether. Kankri shrugged every time he was asked, and often wondered the same thing when he was alone.

 

* * *

  

“Commander?”

 

Cronus wondered if it was possible to lack a pair of sea legs when you actually _grew up_ in the ocean. Was that a thing? Was that something that could happen to seadwellers?

 

Maybe it was just the way everything felt. Swimming allowed him to change course as needed; he could feel the organic push and pull of the current right against his skin and go with the least resistance. On a boat, he had no control over where to point his body or how to work with that current. Now here he stood, aboard the R.E.S. Angel’s Light, calling out for Signless and _hating_ the to-and-fro sway as the ship drifted along the water. Every time the deck rocked under his feet, Cronus felt like he was going to lose his lunch. The last lunch that he'd eaten before he died.

 

He clutched the railing on the starboard side like it was his only lifeline. The only consolation he could offer himself was the reminder that technically, none of this was real, but that didn’t count for much when he felt the seasickness as much as he would if he were still breathing.

 

“Commander!!” Cronus tried raising his voice, wondering if it just hadn’t carried far enough. Maybe he was down in the lower levels and didn’t quite catch his cry the first time.

 

Or – and this thought was horrifying – maybe he’d picked the wrong Angel’s Light. If there were as many variations of his own alternate as there were of Signless, there was a chance Cronus had accidentally stumbled on one that didn’t have a Commander Signless. Fuck. What was he going to do if he ran across one of _those_ Dualscars? He _highly_ doubted an Orphaner Dualscar sans-Commander would be very friendly. Honestly, he shouldn’t even be here. He knew that he shouldn’t, not with the thoughts running through his head after leaving Kankri behind like that…

 

And yet against all better judgment, the first place he thought to go was the ship that housed the Commander Signless he’d led through the bubbles. Even _Cronus_ was judging Cronus right now. He was pretty sure there was an unspoken _what the fuck_ factor in getting too attached to their Scratch incarnations – in particular, when the specific reboot in question was _literally the offshoot alternate_ of the troll he’d been chasing around for years with hearts in his eyes. What did he think he was going to get out of this? Settling for some weird kind of second best? Fuck off from his aspirations of getting flushed with Kankri altogether? Go for some kind of time-space reach-around pale flirtation with the Commander instead? Would he even get anything out of it _at all?_

 

Hell, maybe it didn’t have to be anything. Maybe he could keep his head screwed on straight for a few hours and just talk with the guy. He _did_ need a distraction. Anything was better to think about than the pile of hoofbeast manure he just stepped through several bubbles back. He could do that, couldn’t he? Yeah. Sure. He just imagined what would happen if he even considered the alternative: disaster, as it always was. Absolute disaster.

 

That’s right. Just keep your fucking head in the game, Ampora.

 

Though, trying to get the attention of the Commander was proving more difficult than he thought, and a little bit nerve-racking. Cronus didn’t care to hang around this ship any longer if he’d accidentally stumbled across the wrong one. He checked over the deck again, groaned, then gathered up the air in his lungs one more time. “Hey, listen, if there’s any Dualscars aboard I’m real sorry! Please don’t kill me, alright?! I’m just tryin’a find a friend of mine and if he ain’t here I’ll be on my way!”

 

Oooh, yes, _please don’t kill me._ So sure and confident in the face of someone so versed in the art of senseless murder. Well done, Cronus!

 

“Not that, um, that I mean to intrude on your private property, y’see -”

 

Cronus saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He stopped, turned his head. A door had opened up to what he assumed was the Captain’s cabin, and when he waited a few seconds more, he saw Signless peeking his head out. Same Commander Signless, with the piercings and everything. (Oh thank God. Now he knew he wouldn’t have to die twice just to find the bastard.)

 

“I’m in here, Cronus.”

 

“Commander!” Cronus exclaimed, relief leaving him all at once, like air rushing out of a balloon. “Oh thank fuck, I was starting to think I’d picked the wrong ship.”

 

Signless peered at him in mild confusion and opened the door a little wider. There was almost an aura of light seeping through the open space leading into the cabin; Cronus couldn’t see any details from his distance, but whatever was inside, he had a feeling it was _very expensive._ “Do you need help?” Asked Signless.

 

“Huh?” Cronus piped back, fingers still wrapped around the railing, refusing to let go.

 

The Commander’s lips twitched up into a tiny smile. “You look like you’re halfway to tipping over the railing. Don’t like the way the ship moves?”

 

“Oh. Um. Yeah.” It hit him what Signless meant, and Cronus groaned, doing his damndest to peel away from the rails. He walked across the deck; the distress in his face confirmed Signless’s question immediately. Cronus moved like a doebeast taking its first steps, wobbling in an almost comical manner, a sickly tint to his ear-fins and gills.

 

“Aren’t you a seadweller?” Signless chuckled, reaching with a free arm for his company. Cronus hurried over as soon as he saw the other’s outstretched hand and grabbed it in a tight squeeze, scrambling down the steps to the door of the cabin. “Shouldn’t you be accustomed to walking around on a ship?”

 

“I’m used to swimmin’ straight through it,” Cronus complained. “Not standin’ on a vessel that’s cutting right through. And for the record - since you asked - yes, I hate how this feels.”

 

“That’s a bit funny,” Signless remarked, still all smiles as he invited Cronus inside, keeping hold of his hand. His voice was a bit hoarse; Cronus assumed something to do with the sea air in this bubble. When he was inside, the older troll closed the door behind them.

 

“What’s funny?” He wondered, but that was before he lifted his eyes, and the conversation was lost in an instant.

 

It wasn’t just expensive in here - it was fucking extravagant. Cronus had to stop himself from openly balking. Still, he took his cigarette out of his mouth as he looked around, because otherwise it was going to fall to the floor. And that just would not do. “Wow,” he breathed, whistling as he scanned from one side to the other. Was this how he lived in Alternia? There was a meticulously patterned, soft carpet covering almost the whole floor, a dining table perfect for a small party (maybe two or three trolls), a _huge_ bed, a writing desk-slash-vanity looking thing, and _goddammit_ that ablution trap was gorgeous! The wood was lovingly stained and polished to a matte shine, and there was so much gold and trim and things encrusted with pearls and pretty jewels that Cronus thought he could spend days here and still not be able to catalogue it all. To think, in another life, it was his. It was _all his._ And the Commander’s, too - at least in this case.

 

“ _Damn,_ you sure know how to live like royalty on the go around here!” Said Cronus, laughing a bit.

 

“Thank you. It’s mostly the Captain’s,” Signless replied. “But there are some things here that are mine. He gifted me with jewelry often. Most of it is in the vanity.”

 

Signless let go of his hand and walked, and when he moved for the dining table, that was when Cronus stopped looking at the room and started looking at _him._ Which...was either a mistake or the best decision he ever made, depending on how he handled himself. Signless wasn’t wearing his Commander’s clothes. He was in some sort of nightgown - simple but elegant. Oddly fitting for him. It was something better for lounging in, though. Not exactly appropriate for company (unless it was _sexual_ sort of company, but _vwhoah buddy)._ It was a deep-stained red color, the top sleeves hanging loose below his shoulders and ending in gentle, open ripples of fabric around his elbows. The rest of the garment itself was cut straight and hung down to mid-thigh. The front had a decorative section of pleats for interest. A pair of matching pants went with the set that cut off mid-calf, which Cronus thought were _definitely_ not needed, not with the way the top drew his eyes to Signless’s hips.

 

(Nope, no, can’t go there, _won’t_ go there. Not thinking about him, how his curves are all the same, just more pronounced, more _well-aged,_ with an added spin on the way he moved that came with experience - or confidence - or _something.)_

 

Cronus was vaguely aware the entire time that there was talking going on, but he completely missed all of it until Signless was pushing a cup of something warm and liquid toward him. “- You and the Captain both,” said the other after a pause. “Always with the staring.”

 

Like snapping out of a spell, Cronus looked up, and blinked. “What?”

 

Signless grinned at him, like he knew something. Cronus felt his face flush. “I - I wasn’t staring! I don’t stare.”

 

“He said that the first time I caught him doing it, too,” teased Signless. He nudged at the cup again. “There. Give that a try. It’ll help with the seasickness.”

 

Cronus looked at it again, then at Signless, who just smiled and settled into the opulent-looking high-back chair on his side of the table like he was made for it. Even though the fit was just off enough that he could tell it was commissioned for a troll much taller and broader than the Commander. “Sit,” he said. “Let’s talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [lays head down on desk in defeat]
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER. I SWEAR.
> 
> **CW: one singular gendered slur**

When he joined the Commander at his dining table, it was with a much more awkward motion by comparison, and Cronus looked at the offered drink with considerable hesitance. He regarded Signless with a raised eyebrow, setting his cigarette aside carefully on the table.

 

“Y’know, technically I’m not seasick.” He mentioned, “It’s stupid bubble stuff. I just have to trick my brain into remembering that it’s not real and then I won’t feel nothin’ at all. Be right as rain.”

 

“If you’d like,” said Signless with a nod, gesturing again to the cup. “But then why don’t you just have that because it might taste good?”

 

This was so  _ strange. _ Not that he didn’t appreciate the hospitality; it was just...nobody in their group had done anything like this. Not in recent memory. By now all of them had just about resigned themselves to the dead and the dreaming, and everything they no longer needed that went along with that. Plus, getting together and having a chat didn’t appeal to half of them unless it was just with certain people. Cronus fiddled with the cup, turning it around in his hands. “You know we don’t have to eat or drink anymore either, right?” He checked. “I mean, technically we don’t even have to  _ breathe,  _ but that’s just kinda - like - how do you forget how to breathe?”

 

Signless paused for a moment, blinking, breathing in with a harsh sniff like he was clearing his nostrils before he let his chin rest in one hand. All of his attention was on Cronus. (And Cronus wasn’t sure how he felt about it.) “Do you mean to tell me neither you nor your player companions sometimes eat things because they’re your favorite food, despite the fact that you’re dead? You don’t have a glass of something now and then just because you like the taste?”

 

“...Well…” Okay, he had him there. “Sure,  _ sometimes,  _ but lately I’m pretty sure that’s...not so much. We’re not jazzed about much of nothin’ these days. Ain’t been for a good while.” Cronus paused, then added, “We’ve all been stuck here a long time - way longer than you. There’s just the one of us who could probably tell  _ how  _ long, but she gets all coy any time you ask and spits at ya in lowtongue. ‘Specially with me and Meenah.”

 

Signless appeared disappointed by this news. “That’s such a shame. Has it been so long that you are all incapable of finding any joy?”

 

“Oh, no, not at all!” Cronus laughed. “We still get our kicks from plenty of things. Latula and Mituna have their games and their skateboarding. Kanny reads. Horuss builds stuff, but hell if I know what his inventions are half the time. Meenah is...doing...something. Damara and Porrim kinda just fuck off.” He paused, then added, “And around. A  _ lot. _ Porrim does that the most.”

 

There was a brief flicker of confusion over Signless’s features, followed by curiosity. “These are all the trolls that you say are your world’s equivalents of those who were like me?”

 

“Yeah.” Cronus finally lifted the cup, drinking from it a little. Wow, how about that, it was actually pretty good. Spicy, kind of. He drank a few sips more. Whether it was in his head or the effects were genuine, he already felt a bit better about being on a ship, so - props to the Commander for that. “I can really only tell you who’s who. Aranea’s the one you’d wanna have a chat with if you wanted the extra details. Once you get her on the gossip horn, she’ll never shut up.”

 

“Some other time, perhaps.” Said Signless, waving his hand before settling his chin into his open palm again with a soft smile. Tone still scratchy, but ever gentle, he continued: “So, the lot of you still have games, and inventing, and reading, and sex, but not food or drink?”

 

“I think it’s more like, in the big picture sorta way, we just don’t care for food as much as we do for those other things.” Cronus explained, speaking with his hands moving in gestures, “Like, we’re not gonna die if we don’t eat, so we’re all pretty much focused on our big hobbies and things. Like if you made me pick between music and food, and I went ‘well shit, ain’t like I’m gonna starve’? Fuck yeah, I’ll pick music, you know? All’s I need is six strings and a tune, baby, right?”

 

He smiled big as he said this, and Signless smiled back just as much. The Commander laughed, swallowed hard - odd, like he had something stuck in his throat. But his manner was warm and he kept the conversation going, endeared as he was. “If you’re anything like my Captain, that is very true.”

 

The active drawing of comparisons was equal parts interesting and discomforting. Cronus didn’t want to tangle those signals in his head any further than they already were, but his curiosity still got the better of him in this case. Just for the small things. (Though his brain sometimes jumped ahead anyway. Thought of the Captain, thought of the Commander, the Captain  _ and  _ the Commander, and how had they come to make that work? If they could make it work then, why couldn’t he make it work now?)

 

“Thought you said they made him give up music.” Cronus pointed out, “Whoever  _ they  _ is.”

 

“His former Captain and crew did their best to make him give up the craft, but once he made a name for himself, the Captain found it was much easier to do what he wanted when those around him often turned their heads from his private affairs.” Signless explained, settling back in his chair, “Although his music remained a very private enjoyment as a result. Sometimes he would sing if there was excess drink and merry-making, but playing was reserved for when he took me to his estates. He would compose things, though.”

 

Cronus felt a smile on his face as he clicked his tongue. He wanted to ask more about Dualscar’s music - he was so curious to see what sort of songs he would compose in an alternate timeline - but it didn’t feel right to go poking through with that sort of question just yet. Even though he  _ really  _ wanted to ask. There were other options, though, which he reflected on aloud as he drank his tea. “Maybe I’ll bring you some of my stuff next time, if ya want.” He shrugged, “Not that I got like...an organized system or anything. Gotta make sure I get the right sheets together, but. Could be fun.”

 

Signless didn’t seem to mind. His lips turned up at the corners, his smile soft. “You should. I would like that.”

 

The seadweller paused, hesitant. (He’d assumed there would only be a cursory interest, but here sat Signless looking for all the world like it would make his day to hear Cronus playing for him.) “You really would?”

 

“Why not?” The Commander replied. “I like music. And I’ll listen to anything you have. If not with instruments, just the singing is fine. Captain had such a handsome voice; I’m sure I’ll love yours just as much.”

 

Oh, no. There was the heat going to his face again. (So easy to fucking feel when he was this cold-blooded, it was  _ very  _ unfair! Even if it didn’t always show, the fact that Cronus could tell right away made him so self-conscious.) He dipped his head, laughing with a nervous baritone, and cleared his throat. “Ohhh-kay. I’ll, um, plan on that.”

 

A pause settled between them after that, but it was comfortable - mostly. The Commander looked Cronus over, fiddling with some of the rings on his fingers. He wore less now than he did the last time - just a plain gold band, the ruby-and-amethysts one on his ring finger, and another that looked like some sort of signet. When Cronus looked over, he noticed Signless focusing on either the signet or the jeweled ring quite a bit.

 

“May I ask you something, Cronus?”

 

That was surprising - the Commander was now officially the only Signless to ever try and ask him a question. The rest of them all just seemed happy to answer his queries, then send him on his way. “Yeah? Shoot.”

 

Signless watched him with tired, pretty pink eyes as he spoke. Were the bags under them deeper than the last time they talked? Or darker? Cronus squinted at him curiously. When the other started to talk, he cut in for a quick moment. “Hey, Commander, are you okay?”

 

“What? Oh, no. Erh, yes.” Signless made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’m fine.”

 

“You sure?” Checked the other. “‘Cause now that I’m getting another look at you, y’don’t seem so hot.”

 

Signless held his breath a moment, then puffed out a long sigh. “I’m just...tired. Nothing you should be concerned with. But I would like to continue this conversation, if that’s alright with you.”

 

Cronus wasn’t convinced. Still, it wasn’t his choice. “Yeah, alright.”

 

And they picked up where they left off. “So, when you were listing off some of your friends earlier -”

 

Cronus’s mouth pursed tight. “Wouldn’t call all of ‘em friends, but continue.”

 

That  _ really  _ seemed to hurt Signless, for some reason. Cronus actually  _ felt  _ his pusher softening in his chest when he saw the heartbreak in the older troll’s face. Great - now he felt bad about issuing the correction. Annnd now he felt the need to correct his correction. He sighed, shoulders slouching. “Not that I don’t like ‘em all or that we don’t get along -”

 

“No no it’s okay,” the Commander said quickly. “I shouldn’t...I shouldn’t make assumptions about you and yours. Our worlds and experiences are different. I understand. At any rate, I only had a question about the one.”

 

“Which one?” Cronus snorted a bit. “Can’t promise I can tell ya much depending on who ya name.”

 

Signless stopped, just for a moment, faltering before he spoke. “You said ‘Kanny’ earlier.”

 

Cronus felt a lump of regret immediately jump up into his throat. His expression turned stony and his voice went flat. “Uh-huh.”

 

Signless sensed the shift - but without an open objection, he continued. If cautiously. “That’s what you call Kankri, isn’t it?”

 

Cronus drummed his claws on the dining table with a tightened jaw. “Yep.”

 

Another pause. “Is this intrusive at all? I don’t mean to pry. It just stuck out to me because I also had that name, just. From another source.”

 

“Yeah?” Asked Cronus, desperate to change the subject. “Who from?” (Please let it be someone of a non-romantic caliber, he thought.)

 

“My Mother, actually.” Said the Commander.

 

Cronus’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Oh?” He laughed.  _ Kanny  _ coming from his mama as a grub. Wait a minute. Oh, fuck. Amusement switched to alarm. “ _ Oh. _ Oh  _ no.”  _ (Maybe not  _ that  _ non-romantic!!)

 

Signless waited, brows furrowed, confused. “What?”

 

He coughed, ear-fins flicked back as if in submission. Cronus lifted a hand like he wanted to hide his face. “Uh, your mama never happened to tell you her full name, did she?” Cronus didn’t  _ think  _ so - he didn’t react earlier at the name  _ Porrim  _ \- but now he was feeling paranoid, and he had to check.

 

“...No?” Now the Commander was downright bewildered. “And she never went by anything different with the others, either. We all just called her Mother.”

 

“Oh. Neat!” Then in that case, the less Signless knew, the better! “Let’s get back to something else then,” suggested Cronus. Aggressively. (Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck that nickname for Kankri was  _ ruined  _ for him now.  _ Fuck.  _ He would have to find another one.  _ God-fucking-dammit, Porrim,  _ thought Cronus,  _ you bulge-blocking fang-toothed  _ cunt, _ even from an  _ alternate universe _ you spoil my fun!) _

 

“...Have I misstepped upon something?” Signless wondered, raising his pitch in slight concern. “I’m - sorry, if I did. You just seem very upset now?”

 

_ “Nope!! _ We’re fine! Everything’s fine,” said Cronus. “I just. Need to rethink my life decisions a little when I go back, but it’s fine. Ask me something else. Ask me  _ anything  _ else.”

 

The sudden mood shift had completely knocked the Commander off his bearings as far as the tone of their discussion; he stammered a bit, blinking rapidly in his confusion and shaking his head, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and sucking on the labret before even attempting to speak again. “Then, um, could I go back to my initial question? I wanted to ask about your relationship with your Kankri.”

 

Cronus felt his pusher seize on the spot. He was sure that he would look in the mirror later and see gray hairs just from this conversation alone. “Y’know, any other day of eternity, I’d indulge you even with how fucking weird this is already?” Cronus replied, voice strained, “But at the moment, I’m kinda feelin’ like waxin’ poetic about that chatty brat and his pretty face and his dumb gorgeous hips ain’t in keepin’ with the current situation, so maybe not.”

 

Silence again. Cronus could  _ feel  _ the Commander looking him over, but he refused to lift his head and couldn’t tell if the stare was scrutinizing or just one of continued confusion. Either way, it was a little late to take back what he said, now. He could try to insist everything was fine, but he’d sort of just tossed it out there that things were falling apart for him. He hoped Signless wasn’t going to get too curious about that; or, if he did, maybe he could go light on the details?

 

“Has something happened between you two?” Asked the Commander. (No such luck avoiding the topic, then. Damn.)

 

Cronus made a low noise, clicking irritably. “There’s always something happening between us,” he grumbled.

 

“But, recently?” Signless wondered.

 

The answer he received was Cronus quickly finishing his tea, then picking up his cigarette and standing from the table. He stuck the rolled stick into his mouth, keeping it pressed between his lips, hands stuffed in his pockets with fingers fidgeting over the Zippo in one of them. He paced away from the table, around the space of the cabin. Signless turned in his chair and watched him for a time, though he made no move yet to follow. “It’s all stupid bullshit,” Cronus insisted. “Same thing happens like always. I ask him for a little red reciprocation, he gets mad at me and says no, which I don’t  _ get.  _ I mean  _ at all.  _ But, just, look - you’re like, this old and wizened leader type from the world that spawned off our failure. You’ve got some heavy shit that goes down in your timeline. I doubt you got time for some whiny little pup about his love problems.”

 

There was a shifting behind Cronus as the Commander got down from his seat. For his part, there was some continued pacing before Cronus settled on the edge of the Captain’s bed, soft mattress sinking under his weight. He probably should have asked first, but it just felt like the best new place to settle himself. Hell, technically it  _ was  _ his, in a different variation. Maybe it wouldn’t mean anything.

 

“Don’t you think if that were true, I wouldn’t have asked?” Wondered Signless, approaching Cronus where he had now perched, arms draped over his lap.

 

The Commander sat beside him on the bed, a respectable amount of space between them. Cronus dipped his head, scowling. “Forget it.” He said, “I don’t wanna be a bother. I already piss off the one’a you on the daily.”

 

“Well it’s a bit late for that now, since you’ve brought it up.” The Commander chuckled, lips pulling into a little smirk. “Can’t just pretend you haven’t said anything, now can I?”

 

Cronus groaned, casting him a pleading expression. “Couldn’t you, though?”

 

“I could not.”

 

He narrowed his eyes. “Could you  _ try? _ ”

 

“Not even a little.” The Commander’s smile widened for a moment; then it went away, replaced with genuine concern while Cronus continued to fuss about his current position. Signless nudged him gently with one elbow. “Come on, it couldn’t hurt. Maybe I could give you a bit of insight.”

 

“Why would you want to, though?” Asked Cronus. “We never would’ve even fuckin’ met if not for the bubbles. None of this stuff affects you.”

 

“Nothing I’ve told you about my world affects you, either, yet you still find a way to ask.” The Commander pointed out. “Chalk it up to my innate desire to help other people, if it makes you feel better. But just know that the fact you’re from a different world and time doesn’t detract from the experience of talking to you. It doesn’t make me want to help you any less, either.”

 

Cronus, who still had his head down, felt a soft brushing of fingers over his scalp when he wasn’t looking. He froze, then peered over at Signless, who smiled back and repeated the motion without a word. Cronus’s pusher turned on him for a split second, fluttering all wild and unchecked like a goddamn traitor. The words that crossed his head left his mouth a little harsher than he wanted. “Sure you ain’t just sayin’ that ‘cause your Captain’s not around and I’m the closest thing you got?”

 

Without missing a beat, the Commander fired back. Not angry - just  _ cutting  _ as all fuck. “Cronus, I’m not the one who came running to another Kankri’s home for companionship after a bad interaction. So if there’s any truth to your little proposition, then we’re both guilty of some selfishness, now aren’t we?”

 

That hit him a  _ lot  _ harder than he was expecting. Cronus physically felt the recoil of that verbal strike as he flinched. His posture withered on the vine seconds after, argument shattered by how  _ right  _ Signless was. The older troll waited patiently for him to catch up, though Cronus hesitated to respond, silence blanketing them for some moments while he gathered up his own shame.

 

Eventually, he replied: “Makes me a pretty bad guy, in a way, don’t it.”

 

“I would say that it calls to question your sense of reasoning, but I wouldn’t say it’s terrible.” Signless replied, “We have our wants and desires. They’re part of what make us the people we really are. What’s important is how we choose to conduct ourselves while carrying them.”

 

Cronus ran his tongue over his teeth for a moment, taking his cigarette out of his mouth (and tucking it behind his ear instead, which Signless chose aggressively to ignore). He breathed deep, gills opening up wide, then released a long sigh. Some time passed as he recalled what Kankri told him only hours earlier, words overlapping with the things the Commander told him now. And something else he remembered hearing from Signless when they walked the bubbles together.

 

“...So,” he said, “If I  _ really wanted  _ to be with this other troll, and I kept sayin’ it and showin’ it every way I could?”

 

Signless arched an eyebrow. “Has this other troll expressed interest in reciprocating?”

 

Cronus stopped again. “Well, I mean, he  _ smells  _ like it, he gives all the right signals -”

 

“But does he tell you? Expressly? Does he open himself up to your advances and actually give back?”

 

Silence. His jaw tightened a moment in reflex. Then: “Not really, no.”

 

Signless sighed. (Honestly, he figured as much, knowing some parallels Cronus showed with his Captain. He could hardly call himself surprised.) He reached up and laid his palm between Cronus’s shoulder blades. “You’re pushing him too hard, then. If he’s not yet interested, perhaps you should take a few steps back.”

 

“But I do that already! I give him his space every time he shuts me down!” Cronus insisted, “And then I go back and I try again, but -”

 

“Maybe try  _ staying  _ a few steps back.” Signless replied firmly.

 

“But I  _ know  _ that he likes me,” growled Cronus. “I don’t get why he doesn’t just give us a shot if that’s the case! He’s even  _ said  _ he’s had feelings for me before, can you believe that?!”

 

Signless inhaled, exhaled. Reminded himself to have  _ patience. _ Rubbed his hand along the other’s spine. (Ohhh but patience was something Cronus could  _ desperately  _ stand to have more of right now.) “But if you keep pressuring and upsetting him, he won’t have any reason to accept.”

 

The boy didn’t like that answer, by the way he scrunched up his face. Signless pursed his lips. This was so much easier to discuss with the Captain when it came up, because it was so much less  _ work.  _ Less explaining and more just letting the evidence fall naturally in line with what he already knew. Maybe a different approach would be better.

 

Signless slid his arm around the other’s shoulders and leaned in, trying to be reassuring. “Try to think of it from his perspective. He’s never been with another person before. You are in a station of social power far above his own. The two of you, I assume, are close friends regardless, and although you are now removed from your own cultural constructs, they aren’t very easy things to let go, are they?”

 

Cronus shook his head, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. That was way too much - and way too stupid. Beforus was  _ gone;  _ what did it matter what color their blood was anymore or what it used to mean? And the culling context was completely moot, because, hello, they were fucking  _ dead.  _ How did one go about culling an already-dead troll? Exactly, they don’t, he thought.

 

Frustrated and - in all honesty - feeling more than a little defeated, Cronus let his shoulders slouch in exasperation. “I just wanna treat him right, Commander, honest. I mean - if I gotta back off for longer, I guess I  _ can,  _ but I dunno how long I can wait. I literally have eternity to figure this out, but it’s takin’ forever to get it off the ground, and it’s fuckin’ killing me.”

 

“You’re too impulsive.” Signless said calmly. He touched his forehead to Cronus’s temple, squeezing his shoulder. Cronus glanced at him, and his arm, and...admittedly, maybe at places on the Commander’s body where he shouldn’t be looking. “You need to give him room to breathe. To consider the possibilities. Maybe try listening to what  _ he  _ wants.” He shook Cronus’s shoulder a bit. “Paying attention, remember?”

 

Cronus fell silent for a time, fidgeting with his hands, his eyes going everywhere. Soaking in how Signless looked, how close he was, and how  _ warm  _ it was when he was held like this. He let his mind wander almost to the point of going too far, then cleared his throat and pulled back. “Um, so, not that I didn’t hear any of that.” He said, “‘Cause I  _ did, _ but. You’re getting kinda cozy.”

 

Signless smirked, and he was close enough that Cronus could feel it against his cheek. “Are you uncomfortable?”

 

Cronus furrowed his eyebrows together. “Is this a test?” He asked finally.

 

The Commander laughed. “A little,” he admitted. “And it’s also...a little self-indulgent.”

 

Cronus gave him an odd look, confused. Signless explained, “You were more right than you know when you threw that accusation of yours earlier.”

 

_ That  _ made it click. His eyes went wide; he regarded Signless with some alarm, face flushing and changing colors again. Cronus was suddenly  _ very  _ aware of the intention in the Commander’s gaze, and couldn’t stop focusing on their proximity, or what Signless was  _ wearing,  _ and  _ fuck,  _ if he’d known this would happen, Cronus would have tried erring with a lot more caution. “Oh,” he stammered. “Um -” Oh no, Signless was smiling. And it looked  _ really  _ good on him. “Oh?”

 

“I’ll ask you again.” The Commander repeated, “Are you uncomfortable?”

 

“- With  _ what?”  _ Wondered Cronus, still processing the fact that this proposition was even on the table right now.

 

“With this.” Signless held Cronus a little closer. “With me. I know why I want to try this, like I’m sure you know why you were drawn to where you found me. But regardless of how lonely I am, or how curious you are, you’re not my Captain and I’m not your Kankri. If you want me to stop…”

 

Cronus cut in. He was listening - he was. But what Signless couldn’t see was the way the gears in his head were turning at a mile a minute. “I’m not really  _ un _ comfortable, no,” he said. “But what happens if I say yes?”

 

The Commander thought about it, and then shrugged. “It doesn’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “You have someone you want more than me and I have someone I’m waiting for. We can call it a moment of mutual selfishness.” Signless added, “It can be more than one moment, even, if you’d like. But you don’t have to commit to anything. We can be content with each other however we like - have our fun, be of comfort to one another, and be on our way.”

 

More thinking. Considering. It wasn’t a bad deal; and really, who the fuck was he kidding? It wasn’t like the curiosity hadn’t already spawned for him in the past. He avoided indulging because he didn’t know how it would affect any of the other Signless-es, though - or Kankri. But here was the Commander, offering it all up with no strings attached, and he would be lying if he said it wasn’t appealing.

 

“How were you thinking of, uh,  _ being of comfort  _ exactly?” Cronus checked. He arched his eyebrow and smirked, which probably put a coy spin on his words, though that was totally unintentional.

 

Signless breathed in, then out. “What’s off the table?” He asked.

 

Cronus thought about it, falling silent for a few moments.

 

There was a beat of hesitation from the Commander. “Because if you want me to be less, mmh -  _ physical,  _ I can certainly oblige -”

 

Signless stopped when Cronus closed the inches between their faces and pressed their lips together in a quick kiss. When he pulled back again, Signless blinked rapidly, frozen in place. “-  _ Ah.” _ He finished, “Well, never mind, then.”

 

Cronus snickered wickedly. “What’s that you said about me being impatient?”

 

Signless scowled at him. “You’re terrible,” he declared.

 

“You like it, though. Lookit who you’re all red with.”

 

Soft pink irises narrowed into a glare. Signless clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Just because you know my weaknesses doesn’t make it fair when you exploit them.”

 

More of Cronus laughing, confidence restored. He scooted himself right up against Signless, pressed flush to his side. After some thought, Cronus even put an arm around the other’s waist. “How far can we go?” He asked.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW: nooks and bulges. porn. it's in the tags y'all**
> 
> I did kind of feel a little burnout after 8 pages of this, but hope y'all still enjoy!

Cronus was absolutely insatiable in a way that he was not accustomed to. Which was - at times - as frustrating as it was endearing. And he hoped the boy knew how lucky he was that he was blessed with such patience, because any other troll might have pushed him off by now. Either way, moments later found them properly against the bed: Signless on his back, framed by soft sheets and fluffy pillows. Cronus on top of him, straddling his hips while he nuzzled the other’s neck between kisses. The red silk negligee he wore when his guest arrived was gone, but the pajama pants were still there. His guest was still fully clothed.

 

He felt a webbed hand trying to sneak under the waistband again when he arched into a particular touch. Signless reached down and pushed it away with a warning growl: firm, but not rough.

 

“Stop.”

 

Cronus groaned, sliding his hand up over the wide, ribbed grubscar on the Commander’s left side instead. His head dipped down when he heard the older troll gasp; Cronus breathed in his scent, marveling again at how warm he was to the touch, grazing teeth and tongue over his skin. “ _Please?_ ” He begged.

 

Signless replied, stifling a laugh: “Not yet!”

 

“But I asked you all nice-like!”

 

“Don’t whine.” Cronus’s hand had wandered up to one of his rumble spheres, which the boy obviously didn’t quite know what to do with, other than appreciating its softness. Signless took the hand under his own and squeezed, turning his head. He caught his teeth on an ear-fin and gave a little nip as he spoke. “If I have to find some other way to keep your hands distracted, I’ll do it.”

 

“You’re fuckin’ killin’ me, Commander,” complained Cronus.

 

“You need to _take your time._ ” Signless replied - with Cronus muttering and biting down a little harder on his neck, squeezing his hip, making him gasp - “Don't be in such a hurry.”

 

Cronus rolled his hips down; or tried to, clumsy in his excitement. It was awkward enough that Signless had to steady him with one leg hooked over his waist, followed by the other. “But I wanna just...” He shifted a bit with the Commander's help. It took a few tries, but soon the grinding was a little better, and then a _lot_ better. Both of them made their own sounds of satisfaction. “...I _really_ wanna do things to you,” Cronus finished, unable to articulate anything more complex.

 

Signless chuckled, and bucked his hips skillfully, taking control of the pace again. Cronus let him. He sat up and worked to yank his shirt off over his head and heard the Commander inhale before his vocal chords let loose a steady, deep purr from the pit of his chest, adding a throaty quality to his speech. “What kind of things?” He asked. Signless brushed his palms up over Cronus’s stomach in mild awe, all tight skin and muscle, fingers sweeping over vibrant violet grubscars and back along his spine as the other bent over him again. Cronus kissed him, swallowing up his appreciative purring. He had a chemical taste to his lips - probably from the constant chewing on that little cigarette he brought with him.

 

“All kinds’a things,” Cronus murmured, to which Signless laughed again, which just made Cronus’s stomach do weird flips and made him smile too wide into the next kiss before he corrected it.

 

“Why don’t we pick a few _specific_ things?” Suggested the Commander. “You can’t be fulfilling all your fantasies with me in one night.”

 

Cronus tried to go for his rumble spheres again as he mulled it over. His hands were still new to the idea of touching another so intimately, but at least Signless could say the boy was a quick study with his mouth. The kissing and biting wasn’t so bad; the groping needed omission mixed with gentle correction. He was trying, bless him.

 

Even trying to get Cronus to narrow down his options was a task in itself, though. Eventually, after much debate, and sometime in the process of the Commander flipping them, they seemed to decide it would be a lot of playing by ear. With permission finally given soon after, Cronus gleefully worked to get the older troll out of his last article of clothing, grinning and chittering happily into Signless’s chest once it was gone. Signless let him explore without complaint, smiling back when he felt his ass getting squeezed. Webbed digits smoothed over his hips and thighs, then felt over some of the tapered chitin plates in the small of his back.

 

Once he was naked head to toe Cronus seemed to settle down, if marginally. It did help that Signless put off nothing but sheer waves of _calm_ with his scent, though, he supposed. The excitement was still there, but not quite so fired up as to skip several steps and just drop Signless naked to the sheets. While he explored the other's curves, the seadweller leaned forward, curiously laving his tongue over the nubbed point of a rumble sphere without prompting. Signless encouraged him with a heady purr from his throat, arching forward, balancing himself with a hand against the pillows. His free hand curled back over Cronus’s scalp, crunching some of the stiffness out of his perfectly-sculpted ‘do as he pulled the seadweller in until he got the hint. Cronus closed his mouth and sucked tenderly; another sigh left them both as he did.

 

“How’s your stamina?” Asked the Commander.

 

Cronus tried to see how much of one sphere he could fit in his mouth and made a quizzical noise in return. (He could fit quite a lot if he tried, it turned out - the Commander had enough for two handfuls and not much else.) Signless shuddered, enjoying it until the other got a little too much. He smacked Cronus’s shoulder when he felt sharp points. “ _Gentle,_ ” he scolded.

 

Cronus drew away with a pop, careful of his teeth on the way. “Sorry.”

 

“Could you answer my question?”

 

Cronus murmured in concentration, brow furrowed as he went for the other rumble sphere. He circled his palms over the Commander’s grubscars as he sucked and chirped in delight when he felt him shiver. “I dunno. Pretty good, I guess?”

 

“You guess?” Signless asked, scratching over Cronus’s scalp, loosening his hair from its style even more.

 

“Yeah.” There was hesitation in the younger troll’s voice. The implication of his statement seemed to settle on his head at last, and he realized he wasn’t terribly fond of admitting it aloud. “I mean, y’know, when I’m... _alone_ …” Cronus trailed off. When he picked back up again, he added, “Which is a lot…”

 

“Oh, _dear._ ” Signless laughed, but only because it covered up the pitiful little cooing noise that threatened to come out instead. Cronus still heard it, though, and Signless was pretty sure that was a glare the kid was trying to throw at him - but in that moment, Cronus had his mouth full of tit and his hands full of ass and he just looked like he was _pouting._ Signless smiled, tapered off his laughter to a few small chuckles, and gently stroked over Cronus’s gills. The seadweller flicked his ear-fins out and breathed deep, sensitive to the touch.

 

“Ssshhhhh, it’s fine. It’s not that much different in the end, really,” he said. He _tried_ to be reassuring. “It’s good that you’re capable of lasting for at least a little bit. Means we can make the most of our time together, mmm?”

 

Cronus started to protest. “M’just…” But the Commander was tracing his fingers _so, so_ lightly over his gills, and in the end he just nuzzled into the other’s chest, listening to him purr, shivering and running his hands along the Commander’s thighs. When he smelled a change in him, Cronus turned his eyes down just in time to see something that made his breath catch in his throat. Signless is never _not_ hot to the touch, but he suddenly realized the space between his legs, when close to his stomach and hips, was almost _burning,_ and he was _wet_ and his sheath was just starting to peel back to reveal a thick, writhing shock of candy-red. Cronus wasn’t confident enough to believe he even accomplished _that_ much; he assumed it was mostly reflex, with how much Signless guided him along, but maybe some of it was him. Maybe some of that arousal was his doing. It made his bulge strain against his jeans and gave him a spot of hope to at least try.

 

“Find something you’re interested in?”

 

Cronus wasn’t even embarrassed anymore when asked. He looked up, saw the way the older troll smiled so patiently at him, then looked down again. He reached with one hand; palmed the width of Signless’s coiling bulge. It tried to curl between his fingers, then adjusted to his wrist instead when it met resistance. “Little bit, yeah.” It was unbelievably warm, like the rest of him, and shorter than what Cronus thought he might find. The heat and color alone were fascinating to him. When Signless didn’t stop him or tell him ‘no’, he smoothed his hand down, dipping his fingers between soft folds, and. _Fuck._ He imagined what it could be like to have his bulge sinking into that, and a zap of raw, hungry _need_ roiled down his spine.

 

“Would you like to taste?”

 

He flicked his gaze up at Signless again, curious, still working his fingers in experimental strokes between the other’s nookfolds. Signless was starting to show a bit of color in his face, still wearing the same sweet and patient expression. And Cronus couldn’t be absolutely sure, but it looked like he was even trying to keep his breathing slow. (Was he really getting into it that much already? Maybe it was just the anticipation of it all.)

 

“Can I?” He asked, uncertain. “I mean, if you want - I’m just, uhhh.” Cronus let out an awkward snort. “I’m not - I never...with, umm -”

 

“That’s part of the whole point though, isn’t it?” Asked Signless.

 

Cronus hesitated. His mouth tightened into a nervous line, cupid’s bow disappearing for a moment until he spoke. He started to say something, then stopped. He grumbled in frustration and leaned forward, kissing Signless’s chest, up to his collarbone, then his neck. He redoubled his efforts with his hand, because at least he knew what to do with _that._ How many times had he done this with himself when he was alone? Plenty enough that Cronus knew he could get Signless off in no time if he really wanted to. (He _didn’t_ \- want to, not too quick - but he _could._ )

 

Signless’s breath hitched as the seadweller worked him over in practiced strokes, palm grinding against the base of his bulge. He tipped Cronus’s head up, kissing him like he could absorb all that nervous energy through contact, teeth catching on the other’s bottom lip as he drew back. “You won’t do a bad job.”

 

He _hated_ that Signless was so fucking good at pinpointing his concerns. This was horrendously unfair. He moved his other hand from Signless’s hip to his bulge, fingers wrapping around it, massaging it in neat little twisting motions. (And Signless was onto his game; Cronus could _see it_ in the mild disappointment in his eyes. But he also saw the way the older troll gasped, felt the way his bulge flicked and curled in excitement, how the Commander bucked encouragingly into his palm, and he knew the other was struggling to find reason to keep making his point.)

 

“C’mon,” he whispered, trying his best to be enticing. “Lemme do good by ya.”

 

Signless’s eyebrows furrowed together. Cronus watched him swallow hard and prepare himself to talk, lowering himself _ohhh so slightly_ as he did. Which was _such_ a boost for Cronus’s ego. He wouldn’t deny it if asked; he knew he had Signless on the ropes and he knew that he _liked_ having Signless on the ropes. Kind of like how when he squeezed the other’s bulge a certain way and tugged, very carefully, all the way up to the wriggling little tip, the Commander probably had a whole fucking speech prepared for him - but then Cronus was dragging his hand _so firm and so fucking good,_ again and again, over his bulge and the words just _stopped._ They caught in a tangle in his throat and his mouth hung open, death-paled eyes glazing over. Cronus added to it by working the heel of his palm against the base, mindful of his claws as he slipped his fingers inside and hooked them at an angle just so.

 

The Commander dropped down a little further. Cronus teased against his inner walls and heard music when Signless moaned. He grinned, all needled teeth and pride, awestruck with wonder at how he could practically bring this man to his knees if he put his mind to it. Cronus nipped the other’s bottom lip. They kissed deeply once Signless wrapped both his hands behind the seadweller’s head and held him, almost becoming desperate. Cronus gave an answering moan of his own when the Commander kissed him so hard and so much that it felt like he was trying to steal the breath right out of his lungs.

 

“See?” Cronus still smirked at him, even between kisses, fingers thrusting into him with remarkable ease, rubbing and scissoring inside him in ways that caused Signless to shake. He mentally maintained that it wasn’t his fault. After long moments gone by with Cronus fumbling around - being impatient and clumsy, generally broadcasting how new all of this was to him - he assumed the entirety of having sex with him would be one long teaching moment. Now the surprise of what he _could_ do was so fucking pleasant that he couldn’t complain. _Thank God_ his hands were just as marvelous in this incarnation as they were with the Captain.

 

He half wanted to goad Cronus on with a challenge, just to see if the same was true with his mouth with a little bit of direction. But he decided against it; that might be a little mean. Instead, he told the other: “You are _impossible.”_

 

“Impossibly good, y’mean?” Teased Cronus, lips splitting into a smirk from ear to ear as he nipped at the Commander’s jaw, just below the scratchy scruff of his beard.

 

“No, just impossible.” He replied, a little too quick to be fully focused.

 

Cronus kissed a line down the Commander’s throat, breathing in his scent, a bubbly little seadweller’s chatter welling up in his chest out of sheer affection. He kept stroking over Signless’s bulge, then let it wrap around his arm and squeeze where it could when it got out of hand, and just massaged his palm and fingers over the root. He heard the older troll whimper with need, purring almost constant, heady and thick and peppered with low moans. Cronus could feel how warm his hands had become; when he looked down, he also noticed that they were absolutely covered in thick streaks of reddish fluid. So were the Commander’s thighs. _That,_ he knew he was responsible for, and it made him feel only a little bit smug to think so. Mostly - though he wouldn’t admit it in the moment - he was just happy to give Signless what he needed.

 

After a time, the older troll found he really couldn’t hold up against the onslaught of sensations the other was blessing him with. He finally settled against Cronus when he no longer had the focus to keep upright, nuzzling against him, arms around his shoulders. There was a trade to this, however. Signless ended up slipping low enough that Cronus - who honestly hadn’t been paying attention to his own arousal - suddenly felt his hand against his jeans. Which, consequently, meant he felt _heat_ and _wetness_ and oh, oh wow, Signless was grinding into his hand. Right above his poor bulge still starving for attention. Pressing back into his fingers and twisting his hips in a way that had Cronus sucking air in through his gills, eyes going wide. _Right,_ he had that going on down there, too, and the guarded friction of Signless bucking and rolling in his lap was doing a _fucking fantastic job_ of reminding him.

 

Cronus made a low noise like a hiss in his throat, snaps of a more primal desire crawling up his spine, bulge writhing uncomfortably under its current constraints. _“Fuuuuuck,”_ he groaned, watching Signless as he moved with awe. “You _sure_ I can’t fuck you?”

 

Signless gasped against his neck as he moved, head down, chasing his orgasm. Cronus felt his pusher catch in his throat from the sight when it clicked just how close he was. (A passing thought struck him if Kankri would look at all similar, if he were to come undone, but it ran through his pan like water. There one moment and gone the next. Kankri wasn’t here, Kankri wasn’t in his lap, desperately rocking against his hand, moaning in his ear.) When he could speak, the older troll replied: “Never said you couldn’t.”

 

“Oh, Goddamn,” Cronus breathed, in a tone that obviously conveyed _oh shit he’s right._ And the fact that the opportunity was willingly being presented to him nearly made his eyes glaze over. A moment longer and then he added, eager as ever: “Can I?”

 

Signless really couldn’t help finding amusement in Cronus’s renewed enthusiasm. He’d been so worried about tackling oral, but the second there was an offer to stick his bulge in someone’s hot nook, he jumped on it. Cronus heard the Commander snort, then laugh, the sound bubbling down into another moan. He gave Signless a sideways look of confusion and smiled, despite himself.

 

“The fuck you laughing at, Commander?”

 

“Nothing.” Signless replied, the sound a bit choked as Cronus changed up _something_ he was doing with his hands. He didn’t have the wherewithal to piece through it mentally; he just knew he was close, and whatever the kid was doing, it was _good._ After swallowing down hard, he said: “If you let me cum, I’ll help you out.”

 

“That close?”

 

 _“So close,”_ the Commander groaned. “I’m _right fucking there,_ Cronus, just…”

 

Something flicked through Cronus’s pan again and for a moment, he panicked. “You need a pail? Fuck, I don’t see -”

 

“I’m fine without it!”

 

The blurb was so sudden it almost startled him. Cronus blinked at the Commander in mild surprise, but he didn’t complain. Signless actually seemed rather embarrassed at his own outburst; his movements faltered, his face got a little more red under the mottled spatters of color in his cheeks. “It’s fine,” he repeated. “Really. I just need - I _need.”_

 

Well, Cronus figured at least in the afterlife they wouldn’t have to deal with the mess so much. The bubbles always seemed to fix what needed fixing on their own, in time. He would shrug it off if he had the capacity; for the moment, he turned his head, kissed Signless’s cheek when the older troll rolled against his palm again and made a needy little noise. “Want me to do anything?”

 

 _Bless this boy for learning so fast,_ thought Signless. Which was the only real coherent thought he had before he showed Cronus what he could do. He murmured verbal instructions in the seadweller’s ear, breaths puffing against the fins with how close he was. Cronus did his best to listen. He was distracted by a lot of different sensations - and how fucking good the Commander _smelled,_ Jesus - but he put effort into it. Signless had to actually reach down and position the hand that was in his nook, but once Cronus had it, he shuddered, declaring it so in an eager cry.

 

He _begged_ for Cronus to finish him off, and the younger troll obliged, redoubling his efforts. He squeezed and stroked Signless’s bulge just how he was shown, had his fingers curled and angled perfectly in the other’s nook, palm against the root of his bulge. His touches were firm and _fast;_ he watched Signless’s body as he writhed, twitched, then froze up with a choked gasp, moaning against his gills as he came. Cronus snarled into Signless’s ear as his genetic material soaked everything it touched; his hand was a mess, and so were his jeans. So were the sheets and, most of all, the Commander himself. Cronus could not give _less_ of a fuck.

 

Signless saw spots on the insides of his eyelids as he rolled his hips, riding out the waves of his orgasm as much as Cronus let him.

 

“You are _so fucking hot.”_

 

He laughed again, breathless. Cronus smoothed his fingers gently over the commander’s nook and his bulge (until it started to retract, spent as it was), content to kiss his neck and jaw and drown in his scent for a few more moments. “Why you laughin’?”

 

“Because you called me _hot,”_ chuckled Signless.

 

Cronus paused, then asked in bewilderment, “Captain doesn’t call you hot? That shit’s some blasphemy.”

 

“Oh, no, he does.” The Commander corrected, “Just...not so direct.”

 

“Mmmm, good. If he didn’t, I’d punch ‘im.” Cronus declared, “I would punch me from another timeline. Right in the face. Death wish be damned.”

 

Signless snickered, carefully pulling away from Cronus’s hands and nudging them back. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” He pulled the seadweller into another kiss, giving his pusher and the rest of him a few more moments to calm down. He settled fully onto Cronus’s lap and grinned when he felt the squirming underneath him. The needy moan was a hint, too. “Why don’t I get you out of those?”

 

 _“Please,”_ begged Cronus. Because now, without someone else’s orgasm to focus on for a hot second, he remembered how horribly turned on he was. If he wanted to be extra dramatic, he would even declare he might be dying. Thankfully, Signless didn’t hesitate to oblige. The older troll purred and cooed at him, crawling down low until he was on his knees with his face hovering over the seadweller’s hips as he worked the button and the zipper. “I do need a few minutes,” Signless told him. “But I’ll make it good for you.”

 

Cronus was really only half-listening. He stared down at the Commander through half-hooded lids, heard the zipper get undone, and when his clothes finally came off it was like peeling off old skin. They had been so soaked through that he didn’t even realize how uncomfortable they were until they were gone. “Yeah?” He asked, smirking a little, playful. “How you gonna do that?”

 

Signless met his gaze with a wicked sort of look. Like he knew something that Cronus didn’t. Cronus froze, almost intimidated for a moment as Signless settled against the sheets. He hooked his arms under Cronus’s thighs, letting his forearms rest on the other’s hips, and curled his hands around the base of the eager violet bulge squirming in front of him. “Gonna show you what you missed when you passed my earlier offer,” he explained.

 

Cronus felt his gut clench with anticipation. Pure, unfiltered awe flickered over his expression for a moment before Signless drew his tongue, careful and slow, over the length of him. It was suddenly the hottest thing he had ever felt or seen, and he didn’t even fucking _ask_ for it, the Commander was just _doing it_ and they hadn’t even -

  
“Fuck,” he mumbled. He twisted up some of the sheets underneath him into his palms. “Holy _fuck.”_


	6. Chapter 6

He  _ could not  _ feel his legs by the time they were done. It wasn’t even like they did anything super adventurous, he supposed, but apparently Signless could just  _ do things  _ with his mouth and his hips and his nook that made Cronus practically fall apart at the seams.

 

He curled himself around Signless after he was spent, and wasn’t all too clear on how long he stayed there. As long as Signless would let him, he assumed. He may have fallen asleep. He must have, since when he opened his eyes next, he still felt  _ so tired  _ (for the first time in, fuck, how fucking long had it been?), and when his eyes focused, Signless was right there smiling at him, purring from deep in his chest.

 

Cronus beamed back at him, sleepy, but content. Signless snickered in amusement. “I thought the dead don’t need sleep?”

 

Cronus chittered in the back of his throat, and yawned. “We take naps.”

 

“Oh, I see,” teased Signless. “Just napping? And how long do these naps normally take?”

 

The seadweller shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. “Long as we want ‘em to be.”

 

“I would call that sleeping,” argued Signless.

 

“Argue all you want, but you’re fuckin’ wrong, old man,” Cronus said with a grin.

 

Signless scoffed and smacked his shoulder. Cronus laughed. “I’m not  _ old!  _ I protest.”

 

“You’re right,” he said. “Technically I’m probably  _ way  _ older, talking by straight-up sweeps. I bet I should be calling you  _ kid.” _

 

“Mmmm…” Signless crinkled the bridge of his nose. “Don’t call me that, either.”

 

“Chief?” Cronus tried.

 

_ “Definitely _ not that.” Signless corrected, mildly concerned, “Just  _ Commander. _ Please.”

 

Cronus rolled over onto his back with a sigh. “All of a sudden you’re no fun at all.”

 

“That is clearly bait, and I am not biting,” said the Commander. “Because you got your violet all over my sheets  _ twice  _ and I know for a fact you are full of shit. I am  _ very  _ fun.” When Cronus responded by  _ immediately  _ blushing all across his face, Signless grinned at him. “See? You know I’m right.”

 

“Shut up,” mumbled Cronus. “Maybe next time I’ll be the one doin’ that to you.”

 

Signless didn’t even seem surprised or amused. He just accepted the challenge, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

 

For a while, they stayed like that: just rolling around in bed, chatting. Mostly teasing. Signless would take Cronus’s bad jokes and faux accusations; Cronus would take Signless sassing him and giving him a light rib or two. But eventually, Cronus expressed interest in getting up. He started to gather his clothes together, thankful for the lack of mess on the bed. These days, he really wished he’d hired on a cleaning service as well-trained as the dream bubbles. Probably would have made finding his sheet notes a lot easier.

 

“Going back to the others?” Asked Signless.

 

“Yeah. Probably shouldn’t stay very long.” Cronus pulled his jeans on, shifting them until they fit right on his hips. His cigarette was back between his teeth. The only thing still out of place about him was his hair, all messed up and loose, strands falling here and there. Signless watched him from the pillows, lounging in his contentment.

 

“Will you come by again another time?”

 

Cronus glanced over at Signless, hesitant. “You don’t have to,” the Commander added. “No strings attached, remember?”

 

“No, that’s not it.” Cronus said, “I want to. I just…”

 

“Cronus.” Signless chuckled, “It’s okay. You don’t need to explain yourself. We have all the time in the world, don’t we? You can do whatever you want.”

 

He thought about it for a moment or two, taking the time while he grabbed his shirt and pulled it on. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Signless again; he didn’t feel weird about that. It was everything  _ outside  _ of this bubble that bothered him.

 

“What if I ended up wanting to stay?” He asked.

 

That caused the smile to go out of the Commander’s features. “Why would you want to stay?”

 

“I’unno.” Grumbled Cronus, brows creasing together, “ ‘Cause.”

 

“Sounds to me like you’re avoiding something.” Signless pointed out. He paused, then: “Or  _ someone.” _

 

“I’m  _ not  _ -” Cronus puffed up. Scowled. Squared his shoulders and tried to look bigger than he was. It lasted for all but a second before he deflated just from Signless arching an eyebrow at him. “Fine, okay. You caught me. I just don’t wanna deal with...with him, right now. Or any of his friends. I know they’re gonna say shit to me and I don’t wanna hear it.”

 

Signless gave a slow sigh. “Cronus, you can’t stay away forever, no matter how it turns out. You’ll have to talk with him again eventually.”

 

Cronus grumbled in response. “I liked it better when you were kissing and fucking all the serious shit away,” he admitted.

 

“And I like the idea of seeing you happy. Which includes improving enough to perhaps have a chance with the one you really want,” replied Signless. “But that means you won’t find full happiness here. I already have someone I’m waiting for.”

 

Cronus stopped a moment, then: “Couldn’t we basically be the same, though?”

 

“Cronus, you know that’s not true.” The Commander asked, “Would you be so willing to replace your Kankri with me, if given the chance? Are we so similar that you could do that and not have another thought?”

 

For a short time, he actually started to argue that yes, he could, in fact. Sure, it wouldn’t be the  _ same,  _ but it would be something, wouldn’t it? Except the more Cronus thought about it, the more his stomach twisted up at the idea. But he supposed that wasn’t a surprise. It made sense. He knew, when he first started seeking out the Signless and all of his timeline incarnations, that they weren’t the same as his Kankri. And Kankri would never be like any of them, either. Their experiences were too different. They were different people from different lifetimes, even if they did have the same blood, the same face, just  _ older  _ most of the time.

 

“I guess not,” he agreed.

 

Signless reached out for him and made a small gesture, beckoning. Cronus didn’t move at first, giving him a curious look, but eventually he got close enough to stretch out his hand. Signless took it, squeezing his fingers from where he lay on the Captain’s bed.

 

“Be kind to him,” said the Commander. “And be patient.”

 

Cronus pursed his lips. “I do -”

 

Signless cut him off with a scowl, and a look.  _ “Don’t push.” _

 

“I -” Cronus stopped himself, gripping the other’s hand with a tense expression and matching posture. Then, after a time, a slow breath left him. “Maybe. Eventually. Not right now.”

 

“Just try.” Signless asked, “For me?”

 

Cronus just nodded, letting that be promise enough. Their hands untangled; Cronus stood there for a moment or two longer while Signless got comfortable again. He wanted to leave, but a question in the back of his mind kept his feet stuck to the wood as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

 

“Hey, are you gonna be okay?”

 

Signless blinked at him, curious. “Meaning what?”

 

“I mean…” Cronus paused, getting his words together. With a furrowed brow, he pointed out: “Before we got all hot an’ heavy back there, you told me you were fine, but you didn’t look it. You gonna be good here, all by yourself?”

 

“Ah.” The Commander looked away when he realized the meaning. He actually pulled the sheets up, like it might help if he was a little more hidden. “I was hoping you would have forgotten, to be honest.”

 

Concern crossed over the seadweller’s face. “Is it bad?”

 

Signless didn’t answer right away. The silence was almost ominous. He actually looked as though he might start crying. “I’m just lonely, I guess.”

 

He had a feeling that wasn’t  _ everything, _ but something told Cronus he wouldn’t get much else if he kept pushing. “Miss your Captain?”

 

“I miss  _ everyone,”  _ said Signless. And then he started  _ rambling on. _ Cronus reeled back, surprised, but he didn’t interrupt. “I miss my Mother, and my Disciple, and Mituna. I wonder how the Neophyte is faring. I wonder how my world has changed. I want to know who the Empress has killed and who got away safe. I want to be with them and tell them it was worth it, that we don’t have to worry anymore, but I  _ don’t know what’s happening,  _ I’m just  _ here  _ and I’m  _ alone  _ -”

 

It was definitely more than loneliness. Certainly with the way the Commander’s voice caught in his throat. He buried his face into the pillows, ashamed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be putting this on you. I think too much. You should go.”

 

“What?! Hey. No.” Cronus moved, getting back on the bed in a heartbeat. Signless pulled back at first, even when Cronus worked him into a half-sitting position, arms wrapped around him. “Commander, you’re fucking crying, you really want me to just leave you here?”

 

_ “I’m not crying.”  _ Signless snapped, stubbornly, as pale pinkish-red tears welled up and rolled down his cheeks. Cronus snorted at the sight, because that was definitely a Kankri move.

 

And then something clicked. He looked at the Commander in alarm. “I can’t believe you just got done sucking my bulge and letting me fuck you when you were holding all this in.”

 

“I know.” Signless bubbled with bitter laughter. “I’m horrible, aren’t I?”

 

“No, I’m just amazed you were able to keep it all wrapped up!” Cronus exclaimed. “Because that’s - geez. If I knew you were feeling this fucked up about your newfound afterlife, I would’ve passed!”

 

“No, no, no, no.” The Commander shook his head, turned and positioned himself so he was laying down with his head in the other’s lap, looking up at him. He sniffled hard and worked to scrub away his tears. “Don’t say that. I wouldn’t have agreed if I didn’t want to. You were wonderful,” he said, truthful as could be. Not like he had any reason to lie; Cronus didn’t think that he would, either. “You were wonderful and it was really very good. It made me feel a little better. I’m - I think I’m fine when I have company.”

 

“I can stay longer?” Cronus offered, watching him with concern.

 

“No, not for too long,” replied Signless. He shook his head. “It’s not your responsibility to ease my sorrows. I can take care of myself, Cronus. It’s just that right now, when I’m alone, everything hurts. I’m very new to this. My pain will heal with time. I hope.”

 

He watched the older troll for a moment, smoothing one hand down Signless’s arm. His claws scratched gently over dark-gray skin while Cronus considered his options. “Commander, if you want the company…”

 

Signless looked up at him, brow furrowed, tears still streaking his face when he didn’t wipe them up with a vigilance. He swallowed hard. “You don’t have to.”

 

“I want to,” said Cronus. “At least until I know you’re not gonna go all to tears again as soon as I shut the door.” He put his hands up. “Then I’ll leave, if it’ll make ya happy, I swear.”

 

The Commander stared up at him, mouth pursed into a tight line. After a time, he admitted: “Maybe I could be selfish for a little longer.”

 

“Yeah. Y’see?” Cronus nudged him, rubbed his shoulder, gave him a little smile.

 

Signless sighed heavily, letting his eyes slide shut. “Could we just - talk? Maybe?”

 

“Sure,” agreed Cronus. “You talk. All you fuckin’ want. We got plenty of time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! It did get a little sad near the end, didn't it? That's alright. They can comfort each other for all of eternity. Everything is chill. Thanks for reading, fam!


End file.
